My First Litha

My summer solstice started with tears. On the evening of June 20, just before the sun set, I went out to our garden and noticed that something—probably a deer—had chomped the newly-emerging blooms off many plants. This is my first garden and my first garden loss, so I was pretty sad.

My partner and I planted the garden on Victoria Day weekend, the same weekend I celebrated Beltane. We don’t have a yard—only a back patio and front walkway with tiny patches of land adjacent to each—but when we moved in, our landlord said we were welcome to garden. We took her at her word and pulled out a big shrub that’s invasive in our area, some other shrubs, and a collection of hostas (which I stealthily relocated to common land, where they’re thriving). We spruced up the borders with cedar edging and planted perennials native to our local area. We also expanded last year’s container vegetable garden: we’re growing three varieties of tomatoes, two varieties of peppers, eggplant, and a bunch of herbs. With our neighbor’s Wisteria frutescens spilling over the shared fence, the patio is gorgeous and green indeed. We planted native ferns next to the shaded front walkway, and everything is watered by a smart drip irrigation system because my partner is an engineer. Deer incident notwithstanding, the garden is thriving.

The summer solstice, June 21 this year in the northern hemisphere, is the first day of summer according to the astronomical calculation. The Earth’s northern pole experiences its maximum tilt towards the sun. According to the meteorological calculation, summer begins June 1 and ends August 31; the hottest day of the year is typically around August 2, or six weeks after the summer solstice. The summer solstice is the day when we have the longest period of sunlight. It’s also when the sun reaches its highest and its northernmost points in the sky. Around the summer solstice, the sun rises in the northeast, which means bright beams of sunlight shoot into my north-facing bedroom and straight into my eyes very early in the morning, around 5:40 AM. (I am a staunch believer in curtains or blinds and my partner is a naked-window barbarian, so we compromised with thin cream-colored curtains.) The earliest sunrise and latest sunset don’t actually occur right on the solstice: the earliest sunrise is a few days before and the latest sunset is a few days after.

The summer solstice is often called Midsummer, which feels silly in this climate because summer is just getting started. But if one is following a two-season agricultural calendar, it’s the middle. And if we think of Imbolc as the beginning of spring, Beltane as the beginning of summer, Lughnasa/Lammas as the beginning of autumn, and Samhain as the beginning of winter, the name works too. The name “Litha” is inspired by good old Bede and his De temporum ratione. Bede says that “Litha” is the name of a month, roughly June-July, and that the word means “gentle” or “navigable.”

The summer solstice is a common time for holidays, festivals, and rituals in a lot of ancient and modern cultures. It’s the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. It’s sometimes celebrated as Saint Hans’ Day in Denmark and Norway. English texts dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries describe the lighting of bonfires, the rolling of fiery wheels to signify the motion of the sun, and feast tables placed outside where neighbors could share meals with each other. In other parts of the world, people acknowledged the holiday with visits to holy springs, processions of lighted torches, greenery decorations, heavy drinking, singing, and maypole dances. It was a time for magic: young women performed rituals for fertility and finding suitors, and healers searched for medicinal herbs, which were believed to be most potent at that time. Ritual bathing, which was possibly a pagan fertility rite, became part of Christian celebrations because of associations with baptism and Saint John.

The Pagan internet recommends going outside on the summer solstice and observing the sunrise, or honoring a sun goddess or god when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. Some gather herbs like ancient healers did. The veil between worlds is said to be thin at Midsummer—think A Midsummer Night’s Dream—so Pagans whose practice includes spirits or fairies might honor them at this time. The summer solstice celebrates a pause in the agricultural calendar: things have been planted and it’s not yet time to harvest them. It’s a good time to relax and let things grow, celebrating the sunshine and expressing gratitude for what’s abundant. Some modern Pagans suggest decorating for Litha with glass lamps, white lilies, birch, oak, fern, flowers, and greenery. Suggested foods include honey, fresh vegetables, and summer fruit. In my area, midsummer represents the beginning of the summer blooming period: our native spring ephemerals bloom in May and then there’s a pause until roughly the beginning of July, when native perennials begin to bloom. This seems to be accurate for my garden, and it feels like something to celebrate.

Midsummer isn’t all sunshine, though. After this, the days start getting shorter. We’re in the waning half of the year. It’s a time to acknowledge the balance between light and shadow, and perhaps to celebrate the growing darkness alongside the light. In the past, the beginning of shorter days made me sad, but I’ve gotten better at focusing on and enjoying the present moment. Midsummer is a good time to practice that kind of mindfulness. (I’m also really looking forward to autumn, which has always been my favorite time of year and which feels especially significant from a Pagan perspective.) And after all, summer is far from over!

Some Pagans in North America say it’s hard to get excited about the summer solstice because there isn’t a big national secular or Christian holiday around this time. I get that. On the other hand, it seems like a perfect opportunity to create Pagan traditions that aren’t at risk of being overshadowed by national or Christian celebrations.

In accordance with the intention I set at Beltane, I’ve deepened my practice. I didn’t plan a lavish Litha celebration, but I made plans and set aside time to acknowledge the holiday in an appropriate and meaningful way. After the sun went down on the 20th, I went for a walk with no distractions. I walked to a park about a half hour away from my house, where I spent some time in reflection on the solstice. It was pouring rain, but that was actually really pleasant. (Once again, though, there was no chance of sleeping outside on this holiday.) I walked to the nearly-deserted park, found a quiet place to stand, and acknowledged the cardinal directions, the four elements, the sun, the turning of the Wheel of the Year, and the land where I experience it all. Because I wasn’t listening to music or podcasts, I paid special attention to the world around me, and I saw a bunch of wildlife: skunks, rabbits, and a raccoon. Then I walked home and performed an indoor ritual. I called to mind the directions, elements, and the sun again while gazing at a candle on my altar. I sat in contemplation and meditation for a while.

The next morning, I got up to watch the sunrise. I went outside and watched the sky gradually fill with sunrise color. My partner was eager to participate in this ritual too, even though he’s not Pagan. I poured a libation of wine to the sun and thanked it for warming the land. That felt awkward, because my partner was confused and thought I wanted to clink my glass with his coffee mug like a mundane toast and then drink the wine! It was okay, though.

Honestly, every ritualistic aspect of my solstice celebration felt incredibly awkward. My rituals had no structure, I didn’t have a clear sense of whom I was trying to honor or commune with, and I kept worrying that everything I was doing was too similar to Christian prayer. But I think it was important that I did it anyway. I started on what will hopefully become a more natural practice over time. I’m pretty proud of myself for taking this step forward towards a deeper practice.

The next day—summer solstice weekend is a thing, right?—we took an enormous amount of junk out of the house, which wasn’t exactly a ritual act but which felt well-suited to the holiday spirit. We took garbage to the community dump / recycling center, good items we didn’t need anymore to a donation center, and returnable bottles to the Beer Store (where we exchanged them for beer, of course). We had guests coming, so we also cleaned to get ready for their visit. When they arrived, we served a homemade dinner on our patio, surrounded by our garden, and enjoyed the long summer evening. The next day, we took our guests on a tour of the botanical gardens. We spent the whole day outside enjoying sunshine and nature. After our guests went home, we ate dinner on the patio again. All in all, the secular side of Midsummer seemed to align perfectly with the spiritual side and make for a really memorable, meaningful holiday.