Summer Solstice 2023

What You Need To Know About the Solstice?

June 21 is the summer solstice, also known as estival solstice or midsummer. Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (Sun) and sistere (to stand still).

It occurs when one of Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun creating the longest day and shortest night of the year when the path of the Sun in the sky is farthest north in the Northern Hemisphere.

The solstice is the beginning of the astronomical summer that has been celebrated since ancient times by many cultures as “midsummer”, the longest day of the year.

In essence, it signifies how life on Earth changes in connection to the Sun and how our seasons shape our world.

The year 2016 was the first time in nearly 70 years that a full moon and the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice occurred on the same day.

The festival is traditionally celebrated at sunrise – particularly at Stonehenge (see image above) where the ancient stones align perfectly with the rising sun.

Midsummer folklore dictates that the summer solstice is a liminal, magical time where spirits and fairies can cross more easily into the human world. It’s a time to expect the unexpected and allow yourself to believe that wishes really can come true …

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The Return of the Light

Genevieve Gerard

The Darkest Day Marks
The Return of the Light

The Winter Solstice has always seemed to be a particularly mystical time in the cycle of days.

It is both the demarcation of the shortest day of the year and the day that marks the return of the Light.

In this way, it encompasses both our deepest fears and sorrows and our most profound hopes and promises. It reminds us that our life is one of constant change as we ebb and flow between sorrow and joy, symbolically Light and Dark.

The ever so brief shift of the days to the return of the Light has been celebrated since ancient times by many different cultures. There is something deep within our archetypal sensing to the world that this shift in the Light speaks to.

Just as the darkest hour proceeds the dawn, so the darkest and longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere heralds the return of the Light. This fact of nature serves as a metaphor for the promise and potential of transformation to a better day, a better life, a better world.

Change is truly the one constant in life.

When the change that is coming is the return of the Light and the experience of living reassures us that this transition from the darkness to the Light is guaranteed we can dare to hope and work toward bringing the Light into more and more of our thoughts and consciousness.
~ Genevieve Gerard

As energy follows thought, so the collective consciousness of all of the people on the planet, regardless of culture, irrespective of religions and independent of race, brings us together as the unity of the human family; a brotherhood of man yearning for the Light to return to our lives, more each day as it brings us the perspective of new possibilities and new clarity to the challenges of our lives.

So, as humankind has done since the dawn of time we celebrate the Solstice as the depth of our sorrow, knowing it brings in its wake the height of our joy; the return of the Light with all of the blessing and promise that entails.

Let us invite the hope of the Light into our hearts as our ancestors have since the dawn of time.

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!