Summer Solstice Greetings

I’ve decided to write a day or two earlier this week so that I could honor the Summer Solstice.  I am reprinting a brief message from a dear friend Diana Byrnes regarding the history of the Solstice.

Summer Solstice Greetings

As the days lengthen and the sun rises higher and higher in the sky, we enter the Summer Solstice. The word Solstice comes from the combination of sol, meaning "sun", and sistere, "to stand still".

Solstice, the day the sun appears to stand still, has been celebrated for centuries:

- The Celtics and the Slavic people celebrated the first day of summer with dancing and bonfires to help increase the sun's energy.

- The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light. This honoring of the feminine at the beginning of Summer, the yin forces, complemented their Winter Solstice celebration, which celebrates the masculine and yang forces.

- In ancient Sweden the Solstice was about promise of the future harvest. A tree was decorated in each town and girls would bath in the local river with the intention to bring rain for crops.

- For the Hopi, Kachinas come from their cloud homes to live among the people and renew the powers of fertility and rain.

As the Solstice announces the beginning of the harvest months and the fruits that abound, we can't help but be in awe of the great power of the sun and it's blessings upon us.

Wishing everyone a wonderful summer.

Diana

I’d like to take her last paragraph, which comments on the beginning of the harvest months and wish all of you great success in harvesting that which you have been tending for the last six months or so.  May you begin to reap the benefits of your efforts, and if you have been reaping benefits may they continue in abundance.  I am off to an International Peace Gathering.  More about this next week hopefully.  You can visit Diana's site here: http://www.dianabyrnes.com/home.html