Summer Solstice at Stonehenge22 Images
This article was originally published 19 June 2024.
Midsummer, also known as the Summer Solstice, is an ancient festival celebrating the longest day of the year. For pagans, Midsummer marks the height of the solar God’s power – the sun’s zenith – and is therefore seen as a joyous day. But it also bears some sadness, as we prepare for our days to grow shorter. During this time, we celebrate late June’s seemingly eternal sun, as well as mourning all which must come to an end. Below, we round up some of the most effective and powerful ways you can mark the solstice yourself.
The Celts believed there were two solar deities: the summer and winter sun, both of which battle for light on Midsummer’s Eve. In commemoration of the defeat and death of the summer sun, Midsummer customs are often entwined with ritual burning. For the ancient Druids, ritual burning typically involved human sacrifice: celebrations would apparently wrap live humans and animals in wicker or hay before setting them alight, as portayed in both Ari Aster’s Midsommer (2019) and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973).
To honour the death of the summer sun without human sacrifice, you can light a fire and throw all that which no longer sustains you into its flame. Or you could also burn offerings to the sun God, such as dried flowers, words or photographs. Medieval witches traditionally burned oak in the hearth on Midsummer’s Eve, keeping the fire going for a year and then using the fire’s ashes for ritual purposes. Be sure to keep the ashes of your Midsummer fire and either them at the base of next year’s flame, or return them to the earth.
People would traditionally make pilgrimages to holy wells or rivers on Midsummer to solicit cures and make offerings of coins and flowers to the resident deity. In Rome on Midsummer’s Eve, villagers thronged the River Tiber to the temples of Fortuna, garlanded and drunk on consecrated wine.
In pagan tradition, both wells and rivers represent the womb of the goddess: a space, akin to the Midsummer sun, where both life and death are possible. It is in the maternal abyss, on a late June eve, that we might find guidance. Google to find your local holy well or river, and bring offerings: but be sure to leave something you wish to sacrifice to receive its blessings.
As part of the Midsummer celebrations, trees, poles and even people are decorated with ornate ribbons and flowers. Where we see a similar floral decoration during Beltane, Midsummer’s floral decoration commemorates the impregnation of the Goddess, as opposed to marking her meeting with the Sun God. Flowers play a large part in the festivities, made into wreaths and garlands, and thrown at the end of the day into holy wells.
Be sure to weave a crown out of Midsummer herbs such as lavender, mugwort, rose, chamomile, St. John’s wort, mullein, yarrow and sunflowers. Celtic legend notes that on Midsummer’s Eve, flowers will be brighter and more magical than usual, so be sure to venture into a flower garden and bask amongst the solstice’s floral wizardry.
Midsummer, in all of its glory and solar passion, is typically a time for Venusian rites, which is naturally why June, named after the Roman goddess Juno (patroness of women and marriage), is a preferred month for weddings. According to folk tales, lovers typically confessed their love for one another a few months before Midsummer’s Eve, after which they would plant flowers. In some European countries, tradition requires dancing around the planted flowers in a circle to sanctify a union.
In Sicily, lovers become “sweethearts of St. John”, and celebrate Midsummer by cutting their hair, tying it with ribbon and gifting it to their lover. Passing a stick through a fire three times would then supposedly bless their love. You could confess your love for someone in the Midsummer style: dance around your potted plants in a circle, and pass branches of oak through a flame.
Midsummer is one of the most potent nights for love divination. Old grimoires suggest walking at midnight on Midsummer’s Eve seven times clockwise around a church, scattering hempseed and saying: “Hempseed I sow, let the one that is my true love let me know”. An ancient Roman Midsummer spell prescribes taking a seed from an eaten apple, calling it by your lover’s name, and flicking it to the ceiling. If it hits your ceiling your love is returned, and if it doesn’t reach, the love will not last. According to ancient English lore, yarrow gathered from a young man’s grave and laid under a pillow on Midsummer’s Eve will produce visions of a lover-to-be.
According to legend, Midsummer’s Eve is one of the three great fairy festivals, alongside Halloween and Beltane, meaning fae and whimsical woodland creatures are supposedly more visible than ever. This is a time when the fae dance through the forests, running errands for their queen, hoping not to be caught.
During this time, you can leave food for the fairy folk. Just be sure to not disturb their rings – Irish legend tells of a farmer who built a barn on a fairy ring, resulting in a fire that burned down all his livestock. Celtic legends say that the only safe way to investigate a fairy ring is to run around it nine times, which enables the seeker to see the fairies dancing while remaining protected. A 20th-century tradition from Northumberland notes that this must be done under a full moon, and in the direction of the sun (to circle the ring a tenth time is dangerous). A third superstition prescribes wearing a hat backwards, to confuse the fae and prevent an attack.
Midsummer is a festivity of beauty, with all its ornate white druidery gowns and ribbon-dressed trees. In the Neoplatonic tradition, love was defined as a desire for beauty, Aphrodite being the Goddess of both domains.
Marsilio Ficino notes in his Doctrine of Love: “the purpose of love is beauty” – and the conflation of these two constituents lends itself to a myriad of Midsummer Aphrodesian spells that promise a deeper connection to romance and the world of aesthetics. One orders anointing a candle by a mirror, and asking that love and allure lead the way. Akin to the solstice sun, you might also ask for the ability to rest yourself amongst burnt embers, with strength and radiance.