Hi Friend,
"Do you have any suggestions for Summer Solstice?" clients have been asking me in the lsat few weeks. You might already have made your plans (including deciding not to do anything), but I'm sharing with all of you some of what I've been talking about to folks in different parts of the world about this question.
And because this week is also Juneteenth, I'm putting in some interesting news, books, articles, and podcasts around those themes as well.
Background information on Solstice:
The longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere; the shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere. The Solstices are the great turning of the year - the in breath and the out breath.
This year, the exact astronomical moment will be on Friday, June 20, 2025, at 10:42 PM EDT, when Earth’s North Pole is tilted closest to the Sun, causing the Sun to appear at its highest point in the sky for the Northern hemisphere.
In 2019, the United Nations declared June 21 the International Day of the Celebration of the Solstice. The initiative for this referendum was led by countries in South America - notably Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile in part to bring attention to the fact that for their bio-regions, that day (what the northerners would call the 'winter solstice') is one of their most important holidays .... and ones that colonization/the catholic church often outlawed. These include: Inti Raymi - The spectacular Inca Festival of the Sun, drawing over 50,000 people annually to Cusco, Peru; We Tripantu - The Mapuche New Year celebration across Chile and Argentina; Willkakuti - The Andean-Amazonic New Year, now a national holiday in Bolivia and Yasitata Guasú - Traditional Guaraní winter solstice ceremonies.
Solstice means "the sun stands still" - reflecting the seeming pause when (using the naked eye) the sun rise seems to not move for several days in a row. As a result, many traditional celebrations are multi-days. (Culturally and mythologically, this is a 'long moment' of transition, in addition to a precise astronomical minute.)
Midsummer (midsomer) is June 24 (ie, the actual date of the middle of summer if you start summer at Beltane/May 1, which is when many European cultures begin reckoning the summer season). Note that this is towards the end of the summer solstice period (mirroring Christmas on Dec 24/25).
Fire and water: Solstices almost always includes some kind of fire ceremony - summer solstice also includes a water dimension ie, both dancing around a fire and jumping into a cold lake.
Not all cultures specifically honor solstices. Thus, in Islam, which is primarily focused on the lunar cycles, solstices are not significant parts of the ceremonial cycle. Other bio-culture's eco-rituals are also not always based on solar cycles. If a culture does not pay much attention to the solstice, this does not inherently mean that it is not an earth-honoring tradition! It's important to not assume that eco-spirituality only looks like one way of honoring ecological rhythms.
Common Summer Solstice activities include sustainably gathering local herbs, greeting the sun, dancing, jumping over fire, staying up all night (its a short night afterall), telling and/or re-enacting myths (ie, the Green Man in celtic traditions; the Oak King and the Holly King; the Egyptian Sun God Ra (Summer Solstice is also when the banks of the river Nile begin to flood - a critical lifeblood of that bio-region); in the Baltic region, the Sun Goddess Saule's Feast is on the summer solstice, which is a huge multi-day
The month of June is named after the Roman Goddess Juno, giver of the privilege of menstruation and marriage. Some attribute this to the poularity of the month of June for weddings. Perhaps this is so! Summer Solstice Myths often involve a union and/or recognition of the royalty of the Sun Diety (both male and female).
Astrologically, Summer Solstice accompanies the stars moving into Cancer. I'm not an astrologist, but it seems that lots of astrologists associate this season with emotions, inner work, family and home.
In some cultures, Bright Light is associated with Visions. There are many forms of visions. What's showing up for you?
In America, Summer Solstice occurs several days after Juneteenth, the celebration of hte liberation of Black People from slavery. So far as I can tell, there is no direct correlation between the two. However, as both celebrations have grown, there seems to be an increasing trend of linking multi-day celebrations of both the light of liberation/justice and the light of the sun. You can see some examples of this via the Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake.
For your own gatherings:
1. Pre-planning with prayer and land/earth/water connections. What kind of recognition does the spirit of the land and the sun want right now? Are there ways the land needs to be tended to during this time? Prepared? Acknowledged? Fed? What are the animals/birds/plants telling you? What is Spirit nudging in you?
2. Check: is there a local tradition in your bio-region that is still alive and/or is trying to be revitalized around this time of year? It might not be exactly on the Solstice. Check: what are the local blooms - medicinal plants, trees, etc. that are coming out right now? Anything new or unexpected in your own land/pots? (I have had several - and they all are medicinal plants that might be helpful for our family!)
3. What are the needs and pulse of this moment in the communities you are gathering together? Where are they coming from? What kinds of stories might they bring with them? What kinds of questions are they asking right now? Is the need for rest? For dancing/movement/celebration? For Bright LIght Reflection (lean towards the embodied and movement orientated reflective forms here).
4. Activities...Checking first for safety and local conditions, consider: having a bonfire, gathering local herbs (treat them well; ask permission), inviting protection, dance/movement, feasting, greeting the sunrise and/or the sunset, collective prayer, sun salutations, making flower wreaths, jumping into a lake/body of water.
5. Telling myths connected to this season. You can ask participants to bring a story from one part of their lineage about this time to share around the fire. (Note - people are always very busy at this time of year so be careful with suggesting pre-work. You can always set aside time at your gathering for people to do online research on their phones right there - a bit of co-researching that might enhance the collective's shared experience.)
6. Singing songs. I mean, obviously. There are old/ancient songs from many parts of the world. There are new songs being created. You can create your own, based on your noticings, and share them with others. This might be a great time for drumming.
7. Celebrate life, interconnected. We always need to keep celebrating life. Again and again. Give gratitude. Some people like to move quickly into intentions, but I find that if you are really giving a lot of gratitude, you might not have room for intention/ego-centered curiosities. Receive what the sun is showing you.
8. Recognize the depth of the shadow. Shadows are often sharp and dark at this time of the year. Winter solstice is coming. Greater uncertainty lies in the cards. This is a time of transition.
9. Support the visionaries - both your own visions and those around you; those of the past and those alive now.
Speaking of which... since this is also the week of Juneteenth, here are some additional cool resources. These are American-focused. There are just so many things I can put here - I'm going for a variety of voices that I hope might be interesting to many of you.
First a reminder about th U.S. federal holiday of Juneteenth: celebrated on June 19th, it commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of slavery, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It's also been known as Jubilee Day.
Note: 2025 is the Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church; the late Pope Francis chose the theme, 'Pilgrims of Hope' for this year. Our friends at Land Justice Futures did a cool webinar on Jubilee and various forms of contemporary land return.
Tulsa, AZ has announced a major reparations package to the tune of $105 million.
In Montgomery, Alabama, The Legacy Sites have three sites in the region devoted to retelling history... all of them are free and open to the public on June 19.
Documentary of Three Black Men - a global tour with Resmaa Menakem, Orland Bishop and Bayo Akomolafe that I know some of you were involved in - has come out this year. I haven't had a chance to watch the film yet but it looks amazing - and can i say how much I love the art on their website???
Lifting up Black Voices in history - there are a lot of options here!!!! The podcast Three Black Men (totally different than the above one) lifts up black voices in history all year long (they are explicitly a theological and black-Church orientated podcast, so they lean towards Christian voices). I appreciated this 15 min episode on Ida Wells.
The podcast episode on The first department of education by Throughline is really great. I myself had not really made the connections between reconstruction of America post civil war, the need to educate black folks for basic literacy, and the current debates on education until I listened to this episode, which includes some great quotes by Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass.
Speaking of Frederick Douglass, one of America's amazing orators, there's so many great speeches of his to (re)read. His scathing commentary on Independence Day (What to the Slave is Fourth of July) is a good one, what with Fourth of July right around the corner. So too is "The American Apocalypse: An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on June 16, 1861".
To better understand some of the movements around reparations, you might want to check out the 10-point African American Reparations Committee's resource pages; I also appreciated this Feb 2025 piece on reparations under Trump.
What Legacies of Freedom? A Juneteenth Reflection by Rev. Ashley DeTar Birt is the Co-Director of The Center for Jubilee Practice Program Manager for New York Unitarian Universalist Justice.
Divinity in the Dirt, by Amber Burgin-Brothers (and there's a lot of other good eco-justice articles on Green the (Black) Church website.
I always like lifting up the book, This Worldwide Struggle, by Sarah Azaransky, which charts the black intelligentsia who traveled the world, especially to India, to form what becomes the intellectual and religious dynamics for what we now refer to as the civil rights movement.
I'm re-reading Lauret E Savoy's exquisitely beautiful book Trace: memory, history, race and the american landscape - if you are planning to go to an American national park this season, you might love this book.
I've recently come across the work of Iya Affo, who is speaking as a woman working to heal historical trauma through, in part, relearning how to live as an indigenous woman of the African diaspora. She recently spoke at the Science and Nonduality gathering around their 'Eternal Song'. Here's a clip.
And how could I not mention authors such as Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes, all of whom have deeply influenced my own writing and thinking? Or the wide range of musicians, from Odetta to Beyonce? Here's a moment of gratitude for all of those ancestors who fought against some of the same forces that are still with us today... and who made their bright shining voices possible.
Speaking of authors, if you haven't read Octavia Butler's afro-futurist books, this is a really good time to do so... they are all so, so relevant.
As Butler writes in Parable of the Sower:
We are Earthseed.
We are flesh- self aware, questing, problem-solving flesh.
We are that aspect of Earthlife best able to shape God knowingly.
We are Earthlife maturing, Earthlife preparing to fall away from the parent world. We are Earthlife preparing to take root in new groun, Earthlife fulfilling its purpose, its promise, its Destiny........
Changes.
The galaxies move through space.
The stars ignite,
burn,
age,
cool,
Evolving.
God is Change.
God prevails.
...
Your teachers
Are all around you.
All that you perceive,
All that you experience,
All that is given to you
or taken from you,
All that you love or hate,
need or fear
Will teach you -
If you will learn.
God is your first
and your last teacher.
God is your harshest teacher:
subtle,
demanding.
Learn or die.
