The Midsummer Solstice (Day) is upon us tomorrow (21st June).  Many people from all across the globe from the mainstream religious to people with nature beliefs - will celebrate this longest day and the also observe the sun at its full life-giving strength.

 Midsummers day is primarily a Celtic fire festival, representing the middle of summer, and the shortening of the days on its journey towards winter.  Midsummers day traditionally falls on June 23rd or 24th under the old calender, but it is now celebrated on June 21st.

This day was very important to our ancestors as ancient monuments and stone circles were built to align with the rise of the sun on the morning of this day.  Stonehenge is the most famous monument on the Midsummer Solstice as tens of thousands of people attend the Stonehenge site every year.  Many huge bonfires were lit on high hill-tops, hill-sides and across the rural countryside to celebrate this day and also cattle would be walked between fires to clense and be blessed with the fire, country folk would also walk between two fires to also be blessed and clensed.

The Midsummer Solstice is very important to modern day pagan’s including the Druids who celebrate the day at the Stonehenge monument in Wiltshite, England. The light of the sun on Midsummer’s Day signifies the sacred Awen. For witches the summer solstice forms one of the lesser sabbats, their main festivals being Beltane (1st May) and Samhain. Some occultists still celebrate the ancient festivals around 11 days later than our calendar; this marks the 11 days, which were lost when the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in 1751.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Spirituality, Folklore/Earth Mysteries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.