Wheel of the Year 101: Litha/Summer Solstice

Litha, also known as Midsummer and the Summer Solstice, is the fourth Sabbat of the year (starting with Imbolc). Forever immortalized by Shakespeare in his “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, it occurs on the longest day/shortest night of the year, directly opposite Yule on the Wheel of the Year. Although modern calendars place the beginning of summer at this Solstice, practically and intuitively it makes more sense to me to mark the beginning of the season with Beltane. By mid-June, most places in the Northern Hemisphere are beginning to hit their warmest days. While the Equinoxes are a point of balance, the Solstices are a point of extremes. On Litha we have the longest daylight of the entire year in the Northern Hemisphere, 14 or 15 hours of daylight or more depending on how far North you live from the equator. We celebrate the light in all its glory, staying out late for our summer barbeques and baseball games. This is our time to pause between the agricultural seasons of planting and harvesting. The crops planted in February, March, and April are now well on their way. Some will be ready for the early harvesting in August, while others will be growing until September or October. In early Wiccan myth, this is the time that the Oak King will be killed by the Holly King, turning the Wheel from the light half of the year to the dark half of the year, though Winter still feels very far off. The symbolism of Oak and Holly should be pretty easy to see: although Holly is an evergreen, it’s more commonly associated with the Winter months and with Winter Holidays; while Oak trees reach their prominence in the Summer and begin to shed their acorns in early Fall. And even though Winter feels like it is far away, the harvesting season will arrive soon enough, with all the attached concerns about bringing in enough crop to sustain us through the cold Winter. Litha also marks the end of the time when the veil between the Faerie world and our world is thin. Anyone who has read “Midsummer Night’s Dream” or seen one of the various movies is aware of the depth of lore and myth surrounding this veil between Faerie and us. I’ve always felt that summer nights are more magical simply because you can be out in it. People want to be out all night in the summer, enjoying every scrap of warm weather they possibly can. My Litha celebrations involve honoring the Summer and all the fun that Summer’s warmth brings. We can look over what we’ve done and being to take pride in what has blossomed in our lives this year, taking stock in what we may need to gather in for the coming winter. Litha is our time to eat, drink, and be merry before the light is stolen from us again. The obligatory links for further reading are as follows: Witchvox’s list of essays on the season: http://www.witchvox.com/holidays/xmidsum. An interesting list of Solstice recipes guaranteed to make use of all the yummy seasonal summer foods: http://www.fieldsweknow.com/lir.html And from Mything Links, a page full of Solstice myths and lore from around the world: http://www.mythinglinks.org/summersolsti. Happy Solstice, all. Have an extra veggie burger at your picnics for me!