Summer Solstice: Owning Who You Are
The heat in the state of the world requires you to own the most authentic you.
In a world that seems dominated by less of a cooling nature, the Summer Solstice brings the heat we need to help us see ourselves for who we truly are in order to be the most clear conduits for life to flourish in health, not hell, in our society.
Welcome to a my seasonal posts on the Wheel of the Year. These posts are free and provide traditional insight, ways to work with the season, and reflections in the collective. Tuning into these seasonal celebrations gives a sense of relationship to this planet and the grounding sense of biophilic connection providing a platform to relate, root, and grow as a human on the spiritual journey.
I write to you from the seat of my ancestral lineage in Irish and Lithuanian culture. I feel close to the Pagan traditions of the Northern Hemisphere and you’ll find that perspective here.
Summer Solstice
Friday June 20th
7:42pm PT // 8:42pm MT // 9:42pm CT // 10:42pm ET
The Summer Solstice is equal part day, equal part night and marks the change of season in the Northern Hemisphere. This Summer Solstice differs from that of the Winter Solstice, which the Southern Hemisphere is currently experiencing, in that there is over six more hours of daylight now. The Northern Hemisphere is reaching its greatest tilt toward the sun and now is the time to celebrate all the light we have. From this brief peak of extended light, the days will gradually begin to shorten, and the light will slowly start to retreat.
In Pagan tradition, which follows the Celtic Wheel of the Year—a calendar ruled by the sunlight’s seasonal shifts—Celts marked the first day of summer with celebration of fire, feasts, and dancing. The bonfires were intended to boost the sun’s strength for the remainder of the crop season. The intentional energy was to bring good light to all that grows. The sun’s heightened power, mirrored in flame, was believed to protect against evil spirits and unseen forces. Herbs and plant medicines were gathered at dawn and dusk in reverence not only to their healing properties but to their mystical nature. From subtle to radiant, this time of year invites us to notice, tend to, and expand the light within.
While darkness urges us to seek our light, it is the light itself that becomes our compass. Our light is our clearest power in the moments that call us forth to presence and the evolution of our shifts.
The Energetics of Summer Solstice
Turn up the Heat, Turn on You
Tensions may rise, but your light empowers cohesion
Prior to coming on to the Substack platform to write this, I took a look at was circulating around the internet in long form. I haven’t spent much time in this space or online lately due to current obligations with work and family. I’m giving my presence to what needs me most right now, but I am also staying attuned to the state of the world and doing what I can to hold space where I’m able. I feel passionately called upon holding a middle ground to instill personal power rather than fall into the divide one way or another.
However, to my surprise and lack of investment in social medias, my readings were contrast to the beautiful day I had in my own energy field, I came across articles appalled by the current state of humanity and society. Writers talking about how the most long-lived energies, that stand the test of time, are the ones that come from a place of truth and depth of being, a consistency in that. I resonate with and see the context of what these writers are sharing from their perspectives. While I believe these articles contain very important topics to consider, I also believe the long-standing truth of remaining close to the strength at the very core of who you are. This strength can get lost if we’re not well seasoned in enriching ourselves in the nature and life-force within and around us. Getting to know the core of who you are and letting that rise up without letting others bring you down is the requirement.
In a world full of Artificial Intelligence boiling over the surface of the pot onto the glass stove top and a political polar divide so stench caused by burn marks on the burner, it is easy to be distracted from what is sitting at the core of the process. The elements. The heat as fuel, the air you breathe to cool the process, and the alchemy of the water and the earth gently moving together with intention cook something nourishing. Without mindfulness and presence, the core of nourishment gets scorched. The individual’s role of present awareness in expression and power is vital to the nourishment required to shape the collective dish our world deeply needs. The Pagan traditions on The Wheel are gatherings in union that remind us of the beauty of re-centering and re-connecting. While we as individuals can’t solve the world’s problems, we can come back to our own core to get empowered in order to give what we can toward aiding the collective group.
The energy of this Summer Solstice feels rooted in the same reminder: as the heat rises in the outer world, the light at your center is asking to be turned on. This season invites you not to get lost in the uprising chaos of change, but to stand as a conscious ingredient in the alchemy of evolution through knowing who you are and holding your place. It is a living chemistry experiment—one where your light, your presence, and your divine right to exist are essential to the balance of this time.
These markers in time, on this planet and in this system, are reflection points to aid us in tending to the harvest of the soul’s journey experiencing the variables of the human experience. Rather than contribute to a divide, what love burns inside of you that contributes to bring it all together? How can you use the light inside of you to make this process more whole, loving, and cohesive; in line with the Source providing your very essence?
Cool off, slow down, get present, kindle your flame, and reflect it back from a hearth that stands in love, nourishment, power, and union. Turn on the person you are in a burning love to shed light unto the world.
When You are Your Light, the Darkness Falls Away
Guidance from the Studio: Perspective of a Reiki Energy Practitioner and Coach
My clients have been facing challenges in their immediate environments, not to mention their societal or political ones, despite the work they’ve done to get closer to their own center. These challenges around them confront them to a point of questioning “What do I need to do in order to be most clear? Is there something more of I need to let go or release in order for the me and my environment to thrive?” Frankly, the answer is no. Bluntly, you need to enhance who you are. Bring your light forward and the rest slips away. You need not to dim your light for others to thrive, you need not to bypass the truth of the situation, we need you to be who you are in your authentic power.
We’ve already seen the energy of letting go or shedding the ‘Old Self’ during last fall’s Autumnal Equinox and rooting into your authentic nature through the darkness during the Solstice and Yule. This sense of connection to who you are has been developed and with that, things have been stripped away from your energy that are no longer required for you to survive. What’s needed most now is your ability to feel into that rooted sense, feel who you are in it, and bring it to light.
The Solar Plexus is to our body as the Sun is to our Earth.
In the studio with Reiki and Energywork clients, I am seeing enhancements of this energy in the Solar Plexus. The Solar Plexus is to our body as the Sun is to our Earth. It is the place of power, will, identity, and the element of fire. It is the somatic location of digestion that serves our metabolic energy exertion. We become the energy we consume and what we consume and exert requires strength in our will and actions to discern, be, and identify with who we feel we truly are at our core—not who society wants us to be.
Be who you are at your core and the rest will take care of itself. We are not to conform to the toxic fire of society, but reflect the Source love of light innately inside of us.
The light you shine from your inner burning sun, your fire, will cook and alchemize the earth and water for the nourishment you seek in the environment around you and so you will breathe. As you breathe, our collective breathes.
Fueling passionate expression with the Heart and Throat
I am also seeing that the Solar Plexus is seeking support from the back of the Heart space, or a depth of acknowledgment to give self-support in authenticity. The back of the Heart connected to the Solar Plexus aids in enhancing the Throat space or the resonance of our true expression. In other words, the Solar Plexus is the fire from the grounding energy of the Root and fluid ability to feel emotionally connected in the Sacral. In order to be the source of who we are and turn on our power, we need to express it from a loving place. This is the balanced movement of energy living in the psychosomatic body of the Chakra system.
Let your light shine unto the people and environments around you. Like the sun at its peak on the Summer Solstice, your radiance of your natural way of being nourishes more than you can see. In ways that are unbeknown or unexpected which will quietly weave themselves into your harvest for the time to release and move inward. These unseen forces, in alignment to your connection at your core, may include a subtle power for weeding out what doesn't serve you. Or, they may contribute to your growth based in the small ritualistic tending practices to the seeds you planted at the turn of spring.
Integration of Summer Solstice
How to support your inner fire
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Healer’s Circle for Practitioner’s of the Healing Arts
Monday June 23rd 6:30pm MT
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Co-supported with Dana from Better Being Bodywork
This month’s theme: fixing, helping, serving
Meditative Journal Prompts
Who do you feel you are at this time of your life and through the spring season?
What accomplishments have you achieved in the first half of the year?
What external events are impacting you? Where do you feel called to support?
In your sense of presence and deeper connection to yourself, what feels truly in best of service to you and in turn to the collective? Who do you want to be or model for others?
What strengths are yours that support or bring light to others—how does your light honor and recognize the light in other people? Why is this important?
What boundaries do you need in order to support your exertion and re-center back to Self nourishment? This nourishment feeds collective nourishment.
As always, thanks for making time for me in your world today. Thanks for making time to connect back to the ecosystem in which you are very much so apart of.
Solstice Blessings,
Erin