Summer Solstice Day 2024 is on Friday, June 21, 2024: why do people celebrate the longest day? the solstice?

Friday, June 21, 2024 is Summer Solstice Day 2024. Summer Solstice: The First Day of Summer Summer Solstice

why do people celebrate the longest day? the solstice?

Litha

Litha is the Wiccan Sabbat that marks the Summer Solstice and usually occurs around June 21. It marks the first day of summer on traditional calendars, but it is actually the Midsummer mark for Pagans.

Litha marks the longest day of the year, the day when the sun reaches its apex and is aspected to zero degrees Cancer. This is a day that celebrates the God in all his glory. It is also the time of year when the Goddess is glowing with motherhood in her pregnancy.

In Wiccan lore, once again the Holly King and the Oak King battle. This time, it is the Holly King who is victorious, and from this point on, the days grow shorter.

For those of you familiar with Shakespeare, you might remember the play centered around the Solistice: "A Midsummer's Night's Dream". It is believed that Midsummer Night's Eve is a special time for those who believe in the Faerie traditions. Like Samhain, this is a day where the veils are thin between the realms of the Sidhe (the Faerie realm) and the world of mortals. It is a time for merriment and the making of wishes.

Litha marks the first of three harvest celebrations. This is the time to gather the herbs from your garden. Tradition suggests using your boline or a scythe to cut the plant by the moonlight. Some suggest chanting the use of the planet while doing so.

Honey is a popular symbol for this time (one of the names of the June Full Moon is the Honey Moon). Serving Meade as well as dipping your cake in honey during the feast part of your ritual, symbolizes the sweetness of life and the season.

As we've seen happen in the past, Christianity has tried to hone in on our holiday. They have declared it John the Baptist's birthday. I've read that other Saints in the Church are remembered on the day they've died. But not so with John the Baptist. He is the only Saint recognized on his birthday. They celebrate the Solstice with the Jack-in-the-Green to the Feast of St. John the Baptist, often portraying him in rustic attire, sometimes with horns and cloven feet (like Pan).

Correspondences:

Names: Litha, Midsummer, Solstice, Alban Heriun

Date: The summer solstice or when the sun is one-degree Cancer.

Deities: all Father Gods and Mother Goddesses, Pregnant Goddesses and Sun Deities; Aphrodite, Astarte, Freya, Hathor, Ishtar, Venus and other Goddesses who preside over love, passion and beauty; Athena, Artemis, Dana, Kali, Isis, Juno, Apollo, Dagda, Gwydion, Helios, Llew, Oak/Holly King, Lugh, Ra, Sol, Zeus, Prometheus, Ares, and Thor.

Ritual workings: Self-dedication, rededication, pet blessings, focus on love, marriage and divination.

Colors: white, red, maize yellow or golden yellow, green, blue and tan.

Gemstones: all green gemstones, especially emerald and jade, tiger's eye, lapus lazuli and diamonds.

Plants/herbs: oak, mistletoe, frankincense, lemon, sandalwood, heliotrope, ivy, copal, saffron, galangal, laurel and ylang-ylang; carnation, chamomile, cinquefoil, daisy, elder, fennel, hemp, honeysuckle, larkspur, lavender, lily, male fern, mugwort, pine, roses, Saint John's wort, wild thyme, wisteria and verbena, vervain.

Incense: Lemon, Myrrh, Pine, Rose, Wisteria.

Foods: honey, fresh vegetables of all kinds and fresh fruits such as lemons and oranges, pumpernickel bread as well as Summer squash and any yellow or orange colored foods. Flaming foods are also appropriate. Traditional drinks are ale, mead, and fresh fruit juice of any kind.

Animals: robins, wrens, all Summer birds, horses and cattle. Mythical creatures include satyrs, faeries, firebirds, dragons, thunderbirds and

Blessed Be!

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Ariel

I need help finding a good Summer Solstice gift for my Master.?

I need help finding a good Summer Solstice gift for my Master.?

Summer Solstice Gift Guide

(June 21, 2006)

Summer Solstice -- The time when the sunrises seem to halt their northern advance and hang motionless on the horizion, bringing us the longest day of the year. Also the time of the Oak King and the Wicker Man. A time to light bonfires and honor the Gods.

The word solstice is derived from Latin and means "sun stands still." A little before and during the winter and summer solstices, the sun appears to rise and set at almost exactly the same place in the sky.

In Rome, the Midsummer solstice was sacred to Juno (Hera), the queen of heaven and guardian of women. She was the wife of Jupiter, a sky and thunder deity, chief of the gods. Juno was the patroness of marriage; the month of June is named after her, and it is still the most popular month for marriages. The time of the midsummer solstice was also sacred to Vesta (Hestia), goddess of the hearth fire, and Venus, the goddess of love.

The two chief icons of the holiday are the spear (see Morrigan and Lugh), the symbol of the Sun-God in his glory, and the summer cauldron, the symbol of the Goddess in her bounty.

The Celts, the Norse, and the Slavs believed that Midsummer is one of the "spirit nights" in the year when magic abounded and the Otherworld was near. On this night, of all nights, fairies are most active, and the future can be uncovered. The Norse identified the sun with the brightness of Baldur.

Midsummer was also the night when the serpents would roll themselves into a hissing, writhing ball and become a serpent's egg, snake stone, or Druid's egg. Anyone in possession of a snake stone would wield incredible magical powers. Even Merlyn himself (accompanied by his black dog) went in search of this Druid’s Egg.

The ancient stone circle at Stonehenge was orientated to mark the position of the rising sun at the midsummer solstice. The sun would rise over a heel stone and cast a long, phallic shadow into the heart of the circle, consummating the marriage of heaven and earth.

The Solstice is the celebration of light's triumph over darkness and the bountiful beauty that light brings into life. Roses and bright cheerful wildflowers are upon the altar and usually worn by all. It is the changing point of the year, and the celebration of the spiral dance of the year is common among Wiccans. Midsummer is a classic time for magick of all kinds.

What is a summer solstice ?

What is a summer solstice ?

The summer solstice occurs when the sun is at its northernmost point, directly above the tropic of Cancer. This day has the longest period of daylight hours. After the solstice the sun starts moving south again until it reaches the tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. On that day we have the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. When it crosses the equator we have the equinox, where day and night are of equal length. Note that the sun isn't actually moving anywhere. All this is because the earth is tilted on its axis and the day to day positions of the sun seem to change as the earth makes its yearly trip around it. If you could speed up time so that one day lasted only a second the sun would be a streak across the sky that slowly oscillated back and forth from the southern to northern sky, making one complete oscillation every year.

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