Summer Lily Moon
The summer solstice. On Tuesday the sun rose at 5:26 am and set at 9:03 pm. That same length of day lasts through tomorrow. On Saturday we move to 5:27 am rise, 9:03 set. Sunday, too. The change in daylight begins to decrease in very tiny increments, but is now on a course that will culminate in the Winter Solstice when the sun will rise at 7:48 am and set at 4:34 pm. So, today, for example we have 12 hours and 37 minutes of day light; by December 21st that will have receded to 8 hours and 46 minutes.
The solstices are the extremes of our solar year while the equinoxes, coming in between them mark the days of relative equality between daylight and dark. Another way to look at the equinox is as the moment halfway between one solstice and the other.
Roughly, too, they mark the point when the amount of light shifts toward its next extreme. That is, September 22nd, the autumnal equinox, has sunrise at 7:00 am and sunset at 7:09, almost 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. After that the night begins to gain ascendance with more and more of each 24 hours dark rather than light.
The midsummer festivals in Northern Europe, like the ones around Beltane, often involve fire. The painting at the top is a Finnish summer solstice festival from 1910.
Look at what burns within you now, what illuminates your life. What part of your life could be more visible? Needs more light?
If you try to match your life to the seasons at all, this is a time to consider picnics, gardens, being on the water, painting outside, perhaps drawing. It’s a time to be with others out of doors.
This is also a moment to consider the value of excess in your life. What might benefit from an all out, all stops out push from you? What things about which you have been moderate or even frugal might blossom if given an outlandish amount of attention. This is a time when the balance has swung up on the side of maximum light. What deserves maximum effort from you?
It is, too, a time to celebrate the gifts of peak experience. Look for those things in your current life that are reaching their pinnacle. Don’t let them languish through inattention. Beat their drum. Sound their cymbal.
Most of all, embrace the light in your life. This is its day. Its week.
