BLESSED LITHA / SUMMER SOLSTICE 2025

BLESSED LITHA / SUMMER SOLSTICE 2024
Saturday, June 21st - Gathering at 6 - Ritual at 6:30 pm - By: Cynthia
There's never a fee to attend a Ritual!
We are doing a 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Theme, and would like some, if not all of you who attend to choose a character or a faerie to dress up as, if you can. This will be so fun!!!!
HISTORY OF LITHA/MIDSUMMER
Also known as Summer Solstice, Litha, Alban Hefin, Sun Blessing, Gathering Day, Feill-Sheathain, Whit Sunday, Whitsuntide, Vestalia, Thing-tide, St. John's Day

Litha is usually celebrated on June 21st, but varies somewhat from the 20th to the 23rd, dependent upon the Earth's rotation around the Sun. According to the old folklore calendar, Summer begins on Beltane (May 1st) and ends on Lughnassadh (August 1st), with the Summer Solstice midway between the two, marking MID-Summer. This makes more logical sense than suggesting that Summer begins on the day when the Sun's power begins to wane and the days grow shorter. The most common other names for this holiday are the Summer Solstice or Midsummer, and it celebrates the arrival of Summer, when the hours of daylight are longest. The Sun is now at the highest point before beginning its slide into darkness.

Humanity has been celebrating Litha and the triumph of light since ancient times. On the Wheel of the Year Litha lies directly across from Yule, the shortest day of the calendar year, that cold and dark winter turning when days begin to lengthen and humanity looks wistfully toward warmth, sunlight and growing things. Although Litha and Yule are low holidays or lesser sabats in the ancient parlance, they are celebrated with more revel and merriment than any other day on the wheel except perhaps Samhain. The joyous rituals of Litha celebrate the verdant Earth in high summer, abundance, fertility, and all the riches of Nature in full bloom. This is a madcap time of strong magic and empowerment, traditionally the time for handfasting or weddings and for communication with the spirits of Nature. At Litha, the veils between the worlds are thin; the portals between "the fields we know" and the worlds beyond stand open. This is an excellent time for rites of divination.

Those who celebrated Litha did so wearing garlands or crowns of flowers, and of course, their millinery always included the yellow blossoms of St. John's Wort. The Litha rites of the ancients were boisterous communal festivities with morris dancing, singing, storytelling, pageantry and feasting taking place by the village bonfire and torch lit processions through the villages after dark. People believed that the Litha fires possessed great power, and that prosperity and protection for oneself and one's clan could be earned merely by jumping over the Litha bonfire. It was also common for courting couples joined hands and jump over the embers of the Litha fire three times to ensure a long and happy marriage, financial prosperity and many children. Even the charred embers from the Litha bonfire possessed protective powers - they were charms against injury and bad wwweather in harvest time, and embers were commonly placed around fields of grain and orchards to protect the crops and ensure an abundant reaping. Other Litha customs included carrying an ember of the Litha fire home and placing it on one's hearth and decking one's home with birch, fennel, St. John's Wort, orpin, and white lilies for blessing and protection.

The Litha Sabbat is a time to celebrate both work and leisure, it is a time for children and childlike play. It is a time to celebrate the ending of the waxing year and the beginning of the waning year, in preparation for the harvest to come. Midsummer is a time to absorb the Sun's warming rays and it is another fertility Sabbat, not only for humans, but also for crops and animals. Wiccans consider the Goddess to be heavy with pregnancy from the mating at Beltane - honor is given to Her. The Sun God is celebrated as the Sun is at its peak in the sky and we celebrate His approaching fatherhood - honor is also given to Him. The faeries abound at this time and it is customary to leave offerings - such as food or herbs - for them in the evening.
CORRESPONDENCES:
PURPOSE: Re-dedication to the Lord and Lady, beginning of the harvest, honoring the Sun God, honoring the pregnant Goddess
MEANING: Crowning of the Sun God, death of the Oak King, assumption of the Holly King, end the ordeal of the Green Man
TOOLS, SYMBOLS, & DECORATIONS: The sun, oak, birch & fir branches, sun flowers, lilies, red/maize/yellow or gold flower, love amulets, seashells, summer fruits & flowers, feather/flower door wreath, sun wheel, fire, circles of stone, sun dials and swords/blades, bird feathers, Witches' ladder.
COLORS: Blue, green, gold, yellow and red.
CUSTOMS: Bonfires, processions, all night vigil, singing, feasting, celebrating with others, cutting divining rods, dowsing rods & wands, herb gathering, handfastings, weddings, Druidic gathering of mistletoe in oak groves, need fires, leaping between two fires, mistletoe
(without berries, use as a protection amulet), women walking naked through gardens to ensure continued fertility, enjoying the seasonal fruits & vegetables, honor the Mother's fullness, richness and abundance, put garlands of St. John’s Wort placed over doors/ windows & a sprig in the car for protection.
GODDESSES: Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Venus, Aphrodite, Yemaya, Astarte, Freya, Hathor, Ishtar, all Goddesses of love, passion, beauty and the Sea, and Pregnant, lusty Goddesses, Green Forest Mother; Great One of the Stars, Goddess of the Wells
GODS: Father Sun/Sky, Oak King, Holly King, Arthur, Gods at peak power and strength.
ANIMALS/MYTHICAL BEINGS: Wren, robin, horses, cattle, satyrs, faeries, firebird, dragon, thunderbird
GEMSTONES: Lapis lazuli, diamond, tiger’s eye, all green gemstones, especially emerald and jade
HERBS: Anise, mugwort, chamomile, rose, wild rose, oak blossoms, lily, cinquefoil, lavender, fennel, elder, mistletoe, hemp, thyme, larkspur, nettle, wisteria, vervain ( verbena), St. John’s wort, heartsease, rue, fern, wormwood, pine,heather, yarrow, oak & holly trees
INCENSE/OILS: Heliotrope, saffron, orange, frankincense & myrrh, wisteria, cinnamon, mint, rose, lemon, lavender, sandalwood, pine
RITUALS/MAGICKS: Nature spirit/fey communion, planet healing, divination, love & protection magicks. The battle between Oak King, God of the waxing year & Holly King, God of the waning year (can be a ritual play), or act out scenes from the Bard’s (an incarnation of Merlin) "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", re-dedication of faith, rites of inspiration.
FOODS: Honey, fresh vegetables, lemons, oranges, summer fruits, summer squash, pumpernickel bread, ale, carrot drinks, mead.
OUR FEAST IS POTLUCK!!!
So, if you partake in the feast….. Please bring something to share or a $$$ donation. Your food item should be able to feed at least (8) eight people.
Bring Hand instruments, drums, flutes, tambourines, maracas, guitars, etc.
Please remember to always enter 'Our' Circle with perfect love and an open heart.
PARKING is directly across the street is a small u shaped street [Fern Circle}, with parking on one side the street, Davis St, or Hampton between Robinson and Livingston on the west side. Please be conscious that others will need to use the street as well, and park accordingly! Also, be aware that there needs to be room left for emergency vehicles to pass through.
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