Midsummer

Litha, Midsummer, Summer solstice

21st - 22nd of June

This is the longest day of the year, a time to celebrate mother Earth and glorious nature ats its highest point of fertility. A time for health, love and purification. Fill the darkness with light and everything is in abundance.

Litha (midsummer) is known as one of the lesser sabbats. These in folklore are known as the four quarter day of the year. The summer solstice occurs when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky.

The name Litha is not well attested, it may come from Saxon tradition -- the opposite of Yule. At mid-summer, the longest day of the year, the Sun God has reached the moment of his greatest strength. Seated on his greenwood throne, he is also lord of the forests, and his face is seen in church architecture peering from countless foliate masks. The Christian religion converted this day of 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 the Greek Demi-God Pan) Midsummer Night's Eve is also special relating to the Faerie faith. The alternative fixed calendar date of June 25 (Old Litha) is sometimes employed by Covens. The name Beltane is sometimes incorrectly assigned to this holiday by some modern traditions of Wicca, even though Beltane is the Gaelic word for May.

  Fireflies and Summer Sun,

  In circles round we become as one.

  Singing songs at magic's hour

  We bring the winds and timeless power.

  Turning inward, hand to hand

  We dance the hearth to heal our land.

  Standing sacred beneath the Sky

  We catch the fire from out it's eye

  Swaying breathless beside the sea

  We call the Goddess, so Mote it be!

  (Patricia Telesco)