Midsummer

Welcome to June!

If you want to see me out and about in person this month, I am at the following locations:

4th and 5th June 2022 – Queensway, Crawley for the Platinum Jubilee Market and Food Festival. From 10am.

18th June 2022 – Langley Green Scout Hut, Crawley. In time for Father’s Day. 11am – 2pm

I also run a click and collect service from Langley Green in Crawley, which is ideal if you would like to choose your own crystals when buying. Just shop on the website as normal and pay online, and then arrange a time with me to pick up your items.

We are still offering free postage to UK customers who spend more than £30! Sadly we cannot offer this for our overseas customers at the moment.

Summer Solstice

We’ve reached that time of year where there is officially no ‘night’, meaning that the darkest the sky gets is called ‘Astronomical Twilight’.

The word Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), or ‘Sun Standing’ because at the Solstices, the Sun’s declination appears to stand still; that is, the seasonal movement of the Sun’s daily path (as seen from Earth) pauses at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction.

The Summer Solstice is an astronomical event that happens in a moment. It happens when the Earth’s tilt on its axis is leaning the closest towards the Sun, before it starts tilting back again. The Summer Solstice marks the longest day and occurs on 21st June 2022 at 10.13 am (Crawley time). The summer solstice is the moment the Sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere. This is the northernmost latitude it reaches during the year. After the solstice, it begins moving south again.

Summer Solstice dates:

Crawley: June Solstice (Summer Solstice) is on Saturday, June 21st, 2022 at 10.13 am. In terms of daylight, this day is 8 hours, 40 minutes longer than on December Solstice. Sunrise on the day of the solstice is 04.45 am, and sunset is 21.19 pm.  There are usually a number of online rituals you can take part in if you are unable to get out and about. English Heritage will be live streaming the sunset and sunrise from Stonehnge on their YouTube platform so check them out here: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishHeritage

If you want to see in the sunrise on the Solstice, check the times for where you live here https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/london

Litha or Liða

Litha is a Midsummer celebration often merged Summer Solstice celebration, and is a celebration of the Goddess and God at the height of their power: the King and Queen of fertile lands where they rule over the growing fruitful Earth, like a growing pregnancy. Litha marks the zenith of the Sun and the day of the longest light and usually celebrated with fire. In many places across Scandinavia, the practice of lighting a bonfire on midsummer is still celebrated. You may choose to celebrate this with a fire ritual of your own, or perhaps use the time to meditate.

It is a good time to draw down that the energy from the Sun at the height of its power, and use it in your magick. And when the sun goes down, this is the best time for divination!

Litha will start on Monday21st June 2022 and is celebrated through to Friday 24th June 2022.

In Old English, June and July were collectively called Liða (pronounced lee–thuh). The Old English character ð having the voiced th-. There are many theories as to what ‘liða’ means. Today’s pagans use the word to refer to Midsummer; however, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Bede mentions in his treatise De temporum ratione that ‘liða’ means ‘calm’, or ‘navigable’ in both the month and the serenity of the breezes, and the waters are usually navigable.” The fact that the Old English word for ‘to sail’ is ‘līðan’ would seem to support Bede’s statement, indicating that June and July were knows for calm waters and weather. On its own, June was sometimes also referred to as ‘Ærra-Liða’, which is ‘first Liða’, and July ‘Æftera-Liða’, or ‘after/second Liða.’

líða is an Old Norse word that appears in the modern Icelandic and Faroese languages today, and means ‘suffer’ or ‘feel’ as it did in Old Norse. This indicates that the meaning hasn’t really changed much within language evolution of Old Norse as it has done in Old English, and suggests Old English has Old Norse roots.

Blessings

Saranne