posted June 20, 2006 12:56 PM         

Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year when the Sun is at it's highest point. This sacred day symbolizes the power of the Sun which marks an important turning point on the Great Solar Wheel of the Year, for after the Solstice of Summer, the days grow visibly shorter. Midsummer is both a fire festival and a water festival, the fire being the God-aspect and the water the Goddess-aspect.
In certain traditions, the Summer Solstice symbolizes the end of the reign of the waxing year's Oak-King who is now replaced by his successor, the Holly-King of the waning year. (The Holly-King will rule until the Winter Sabbat of Yule, the shortest day of the year.) The Sun-God significance of the Midsummer Sabbat is very clear. At the Summer Solstice, he is at his highest and brightest, and his day is at its longest. Witches, naturally and rightly, greet and honor him at the peak of his annual cycle, invoking him to "put to flight the powers of darkness" and to bring fertility to the land. Midsummer is perhaps the most celebratory of the Festivals, in the sense that it rejoices in the full flood of the year's abundance, the height of light and warmth.
The Summer Solstice is the ideal time for divinations, healing rituals, and the cutting of divining rods and wands. All forms of magick (especially love-magick) are also extremely potent on Summer Solstice Eve, and it is believed that whatever is dreamt of on this night will come true for the dreamer.
For some modern tradition, fire is a central feature of the Midsummer Sabbat as it is of Beltaine. But the cauldron (which on May Eve holds the Beltaine fire) is used at Midsummer for the water with which the High Priestess sprinkles her coven, it is suggested to have twin bonfires or twin candles for the Midsummer rite.
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Summer is a time of celebration, of prosperity and abundance. With its long days and short nights, summer is synonymous with love and romance. It's no wonder that June is still the most popular bridal month. Interestingly, this harks back to ancient times, when ceremonies were performed to represent symbolic marriages between mortals and gods. Traditionally, cultures around the world have seen summer as a celebration of the strength and fertility of Mother Earth and of other Goddesses who represent the Divine Feminine. The Greeks dedicated the summer solstice to Hestia, goddess of the hearth. Because this is a time when the sun begins to wane (it waxes after the winter solstice), ancient cultures in Denmark, Norway, Austria, Germany, Britain, and Spain, as well as native peoples in North Africa and South America, lit bonfires to guarantee the sun’s return the following year. Often, as part of these rituals, celebrants picked prized summer flowers and herbs—mugwort, chamomile, geranium, St. John’s wort, thyme, and pennyroyal—to throw on their festival bonfires.
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Summer solstice is one of the two main energy portals of the year in the Northern Hemisphere; at one time it may have been the primary one. It is the only season when the Earth and Sun combine in bounty, reflecting the Mother-Father’s generosity, while the Moon reasserts her dominion as chief luminary and the nights once again begin to lengthen.
The magic of this crossroads brightens hearts and sweetens the air like the honeysuckles now giving up their ripe essence to June bees. In pre-Christian times the June Full Moon was known as the Honey Moon, from which the contemporary reference to nuptial passion was derived. Her reign was considered a blessed time to wed.

The current configuration now intensifies even further the solstice interplay of masculine and feminine, as the Sun is in the Moon’s sign (Cancer). The themes of joy and fertility are strong, yet so is the theme of work.
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The wee folk are especially receptive now. Access them by calling on the positive fairies.
The veil between dimensions begins to thin with the Moon’s resurgence at Solstice, and will reach maximum subtlety by Samhain. Along with invoking good fairies, pagan tradition now calls for the banishing of less kind little folk by the burning of herbs, (you can use incense) for your solstice ceremony. Call upon all the nurturing forces of the terrestrial and stellar environment to strengthen the joy and confidence necessary to complete our work, leading to the harvest of our goals.
~Meditation/Invocation: The full light of Midsummer Moon and Sun clarifies the bounteous assistance now flowing to me from visible reality and invisible Fairy Realms. I give myself the time, love and permission to receive this assistance and this bounty now. My initiatives in support of inner and outer work now affirm my conviction in my right to manifest the full fruits of all intentions and efforts.
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Cute idea: Be outside and have sweets and offer some to the fairies. Make a fire, dance if you want to, hug the trees and give them an offering of compost.
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"Divine being of Light, I salute you! I resonate with joy and exhilaration for indeed you represent the reflection of reality that be I and you are a teacher and mirror and symbol of Divine Light! I salute you in the grandeur and magnificence that you are and in the knowing that I be also thus."
~Ascended Master Saint Germain's salutation to the sun. From the book "Twin Souls & Soulmates", The I AM Presence of St. Germain channeled through Azena Ramanda and Claire Heartsong, Chapter 7, "I AM Free."