Solstice Blessings! Happy Summer! (And, of course, wonderful wintery blessings to all our southern hemisphere friends).
I’m entering this season with a sense of delighted anticipation, as though our beautiful spinning Gaia has issued a special invitation for a new journey, a new adventure, a new way of showing up. I feel like I’m on the lookout for radiance everywhere. I want to summon everything forward into the light; inviting everyone to show up in golden costumes; asking all of us to turn our faces to the sun and be part of the luminosity.
Solstice literally means still point. Don’t you think that’s a perfect cosmic invitation to pause at the zenith of our northerly solar year and reflect? It’s a great time to note and celebrate what we’ve accomplished and welcomed into our lives so far, and to honor what’s ready to be let go of. And when we’ve done that, it’s time to step over the threshold into a new season and open to into fresh energies. What do you wish to create? How do you want to express yourself in the container of this season? What magic and delight do you want to invoke?
This is a great time to do a bit of journaling. Take a moment and consider how you’d like to be this summer; what you’d like to unfold.
Find a word, a poem, a quote, a title that celebrates your brightness and use it often. Let it inspire you. Let it celebrate you. Let it encourage you to shine, shine, shine with the full brightness of your being. Give yourself a label. A title. Something amusing and inspiring. Own it. I have a friend who is brilliant at bequeathing titles, and perhaps you know someone who is as well. Or maybe that’s part of your mission this summer – handing out titles that encourage people to bloom into them. I wear an armful of bangles, each one of which is engraved with a bit of poetry that delights me. Whenever I move my arm the jingling of the bracelets is a little reminder that I carry joyful inspiration around with me always. What are your reminders?
I’m choosing to remember what Hafiz said so beautifully:
“An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.”
That’s how I want to show up this summer; what I want my energetic address to be; how I want to walk through this quarter of the year.
This solstice portalway is an opening to what I expect will be an energetically intense season, both personally and collectively. Even as I know this, I’m reminded that we need to be mindful of how we hold this. People often think intensity is a code word for difficulty and start preparing themselves with an overlay of fear. But this is just a pattern and one that doesn’t actually need to be engaged with. What if we choose to activate the bliss-charged, joy-filled aspects of intensity? The creative fire blazing hotly? The curiosity that fuels profound new discoveries? All these things are equally available potentials as well.
I’ve been deeply immersing myself in Hafiz again lately, and I love this particular wisdom teaching of his. It speaks to me about what I think we’re all called to do, and reminds that we’ve got so much support and so many resources. Perhaps it’s our perfect invitation to have the most wonderful season we can.
How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give this world
All its Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being.
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened.
I have a number of projects I’m interested in working on this summer, and I’d love to get to every single one and more. But I’m also mindful that I need to honor the call for deep rest and gentleness and nurturing my body is requiring now as well. It seems a dance of balance is on my agenda, and as always, I’m curious to see how it unfolds. I think this “summer radiance” project of mine feels both like the perfect container to hold this season with AND to be held within. I’m approaching this as a grand adventure and experience – just how much radiance can I entrain to?
What about you dear friends? What are you wishing? What are you planning? How do you want to engage with this new season filled with possibilities? Do tell – you know I love to hear. And know I’m wishing you a most wondrous, joy-filled season.
Hari OM
Stillness – perfect – for today around the Hutch there has been an incredible stillness such as is rarely seen. Not a breath of wind and the water of the estuary as flat as glass. As if the earth was taking a big deep breath and then pausing just at that point before letting it all out again!
Taking time to breathe properly strikes me as something I need to refresh my practice of, since, for reasons that can only be my own, I have slipped into shallow puffs. Slowing and deepening the breath allows the mind to do the same.
I start now and think not beyond tomorrow. Let it arrive with what it holds then.
YAM xx
Oh, the stillness of your surroundings sounds perfect Yamini! I find it interesting you mention breathing – I’ve noticed a shallowness to my breathing as well, and have committed to a conscious breath practice that I expect will prove quite helpful. Wishing you a wonderful summer season, as it unfolds perfectly moment by moment.
Happy Solstice, Deborah!
Thanks Pattie. And you know I’m holding the same wish for you.
Yes, I am feeling that excitement and energy too, probably brought on by the craft fair I was able to participate in yesterday with such a great outcome. I have tons of ideas spinning around in my head and I need to capture them all on paper so I can begin working toward them. I also take the month of June to look over the vision cards I made in January to see how I’m doing with my goals. Have a wonderful summer my friend!
Sounds like a rich and inspired time Janet – how great! I love your practice of pausing midpoint in the year and reviewing your vision cards. A perfect chance to celebrate successes and do some tweaking if desired. Happy summer!
I’m taking the summer one day at a time and paying close attention. I went to a rose garden the other day and sniffed nearly all the roses. It was a very sensory experience and so soothing. For most of the summer I’ll have house guests (family) and that changes my routines and life substantially. It can be tough but I’m treating it as an opportunity for growth.
The trip to the rose garden sounds fabulous Margaret. I hope your summer of visitors turns out to be a wonderful adventure. But if you get a bit overwhelmed maybe you can slip out for another visit to the roses.
A beautiful reminder to stop and smell the roses, Deborah. After the past several years – with a few surgeries and such, plus Covid – I am eager to become fully active again with writing projects and physical events. Two publishing projects are complete so blogging is next.
My new blogging project is an extension of my April AtoZ2021 theme: “Novel Research” (novel meaning interesting, different, unusual.) I took a break in May, then returned in June. Anyone who wants to share details of a novel research topic is welcome to participate.
Congrats on the publishing projects Gail, I’m delighted to hear about your blogging project. May summer unfold in all manner of wonderful ways for you!