Summer Solstice

Summer solstice is a weird one for me. I care very much about the winter solstice; it’s a rough time of year, and solstice means it’s getting (quite literally) brighter. But although I have a hard time with the heat of summer, summer solstice in my climate doesn’t mean much of anything, other than it gets dark earlier so I have a slightly better chance of getting to bed on time. Add to that the fact that it doesn’t have a prominent position in Irish lore, and I mostly celebrate the summer solstice to be in solidarity with other Pagans.

Which isn’t a bad thing, really. While I have come to the realization lately that I’m different enough from any particular Pagan group to want to belong to it, I do think that acknowledging the larger community is a part of healthy religious practice, and related to (although not the same as) honoring the ancestors, and I don’t want to pretend that I can adopt a personal Pagan practice and ignore everyone else who’s doing the same thing. So I don’t have a problem with celebrating Solstice because everyone else is doing it, even if it doesn’t mean much to me. It just means that it’s kind of a struggle to get it done, sometimes.

Solstice fell on a weekend this year, but it was a weekend that also happened to be the only one for three weeks in either direction that I didn’t have plans to hang out with other people, and I am the world’s staunchest introvert. Plus I work a public service job. My friend texted me a happy Solstice message on the day, and I still didn’t manage to get the rite done until the following - Wednesday? Thursday? It was several days later, anyway. I used the same Simple Rite from ADF that I’ve been using for a while, and the Crane Breviary prayer to Tyrannis, and it worked just fine. (I’ve never done a rite honoring a sky god before, not since I left Christianity, but the omen I drew was The Hierophant, so I think I did it right.) That’s all it was, fine, but like I said - I didn’t need it to be more than that.

I’m still craving a more regular daily practice, but I haven’t come up with anything that actually works yet. My meditation schedule has been shot for a while now (if I were still planning to complete the Dedicant Path paperwork I’d have to reset the clock on my eight months of mental training, but I don’t think I am), but even so, that wasn’t quite what I wanted. I tried Erynn Rowan Laurie’s Circle of Stones again; that didn’t do it, either. I’m afraid I might actually have to write my own prayers for that to work for me.