Finding Solace within Solstice

Written by Adaire Hahn

Once, before our sons and daughters recognized the grave digger's rhythms of war (do you remember that there was such a time?), before we had war-lords for rulers, and resources were distributed only to the wealthy; before water and children were bought and sold as luxuries, not a right; before god rode a blazing chariot across the sky and Hercules pushed the Wheel of Fortuna through the twelve houses of the zodiac, god was a seed.

In the same oil rich lands we greedily wipe our mouths upon, we uncover the Fertile Crescent and the birthplace of the first pre-historic civilization in ancient Anatolia called Çatalhöyük.. In 6500 BCE women and men shared equally amongst each other. Women were buried with their tools of trade and with her children; men had equal status with each other. Before darkness was equated with disconnection and fear, we shaped our gods from grains, and goddesses from sacred storage houses.

She held the seeds within her. He grew within her womb. He came to her as a lover, not as a conquerer. There were no connotations of violence in the love making and fertility of the gods. There were no words of war, sacrifice of man or animal. This multi-racial culture thrived for 2,100 years in harmony with the earth and the pulses of life sustainability.

God was a grain. His body lay dormant in the darkness of winter’s womb/tomb. He was idea and energy put forth. She was the void where creativity and inspiration sprung from. And both were within us. In the summertime, the grains were ripening, the fruit on the tree hung heavy with its nectarous scent. Like fruit on the vine, and the Sun's rays, we are all susceptible to our turn on the Wheel from top to bottom, outward to inward.

Summer Solstice harnesses the solar god's chariot of power, the zenith at which his fiery kiss comes closest to Mother Earth's cheek and instantaneously starts to die. The crux of power, the orgasm of energetic ebb, is the culmination of the outward push of life. And after the last jubilant inhalation, we pause, mid-flight, yield, and exhale.

This is the time to find that joining within. At the height of our greatest flash of brilliance, we are at our most vulnerable state; beginning the journey inward to heal, to harvest, and to invest within the abundance we have created. We gather council with others. We connect with others who will be of deep rootedness. We will need sustenance for the journey.

“I celebrate the noon of summer with mystic rites.
O great Goddess and God,
all nature vibrates with your energies
and the Earth is bathed with warmth and life.
Now is the time of forgetting past cares and banes;
Now is the time for purification.
O fiery Sun,
burn away the un-useful,
the hurtful,
the bane,
in your omnipotent power.
Purify me!
Purify me!
Purify me!”

----Scott Cunningham

Adaire uses Sunblock SPF 1000 in all her Summer Solstice rituals

BCE: Before Common Era. The term is used by people who choose not to acknowledge Christ as in BC (Before Christ).