Midsummer is a time of abundance in the natural world, even where I live in the (at times unseasonably snowy) south of the North. It was a time of abundance at the grocery store again, too, which was a relief after a couple months of shortages and making do. I planned a celebratory dinner for the night before the solstice.
I wanted a summery dinner for Midsummer and settled on potato salad, black bean gazpacho, homemade dinner rolls with honey butter, and strawberry-rhubarb pie with French vanilla ice cream. The potato salad is a standard from a classic cookbook; the gazpacho is a family recipe; the dinner rolls were made by my partner, who has become quite the expert baker during this pandemic; the honey butter was a redux of last year’s Midsummer spread sans powdered sugar, which I think was an improvement (it’s not supposed to be dessert, after all); and the strawberry-rhubarb pie has been the plan all along, and I must say, it was both the easiest and most delicious pie yet. I was really happy with this dinner, and it was made all the more enjoyable by the scarcity that preceded it and the gorgeous setting in which it was consumed.
Dinner on the patio is one of the most special memories I’ll treasure from this place, no matter what comes next. This is the first time in my adult life that I’ve had a personal outdoor area of my own, and we don’t let it go to waste: as soon as it’s warm enough, we like to eat outside. The citronella torches help keep mosquitoes away, and this Midsummer we were treated to the sight of the first fireflies of the year dancing in the park and the nearby trees. The fireflies always emerge right around the summer solstice, which really helps mark the holiday for me.
Midsummer is the beginning of garden season as well as firefly season. Our native plant garden is just in its earliest stages of flowering: the Echinacea pallida seems to be the first to bloom, and its blossoms are just starting to unfold at Midsummer. This is the first year the garden is growing from a complete winter slumber rather than from plants propagated in a greenhouse and it’s really fun to see how it progresses under natural conditions.
Dinner on the patio is a really nice way to enjoy the garden, and it’s also often an opportunity to commune with animal visitors. Last summer we regularly saw Peaches the raccoon, whose boldness was a little alarming when I was on crutches and couldn’t easily get away. This Midsummer we were visited by rabbits, who hopped right across the patio while we were sitting there, mere feet from our feet. It’s also common to see skunks, bats, birds, and of course, insects.
I couldn’t make a Midsummer bonfire, since firepits and chimneas are forbidden, but some of our yard-owning neighbours did! There’s one set of neighbours (nickname: The Hippies) who regularly have fires, but this was a different set. I wondered if they were celebrating the holiday. It would be interesting to have Pagan neighbours, and maybe a good thing, but I’d definitely want to get to know them before introducing myself as a fellow Pagan.
On the morning of the solstice, I got up to watch the sunrise. I couldn’t drag myself out of bed before first light, which was probably sometime before 5 AM, but I was up with plenty of time to dress, head outside, and enjoy the dawn before the sun actually appeared above the horizon. My libation was a concrete offering to the local spirits: a spoonful of grape jelly for the orioles. Someone ate it all while I was outside, but I must have been on the opposite side of the house when it happened. When I was outside greeting the dawn, I learned that the very first place the sun touches my street in the morning is my bedroom window! No wonder it’s always incredibly bright in there so early during the summer months. As the sun rose, I looked for birds, enjoyed the increasing warmth, and watched the light gradually touch all the trees and houses. Unlike last year, I didn’t go back to bed after sunrise. It was pleasant, and a little surreal, to get such an early start.
Finally, on the evening of the solstice, I attended another online ritual by John Beckett. I really value the opportunity to mark Pagan holidays in a way that’s distinctly religious. I look forward to hopefully attending in-person rituals someday, but in the meantime, his online rituals are much appreciated.
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