I'm Em, the herbalist, women’s health advocate, co-author of the Hay House published "Sacred Cycles Oracle," and Moon-loving-mystic behind Garden of the Moon. 🌙 Garden of the Moon's mission is to empower women to rewrite their limiting beliefs surrounding their bodies while rooting them in deep connection to the Earth.
🌻 SOLSTICE MISSIVE ~ ancestral wisdom, rituals & powerful archetypes for this Holy Day
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Sweet Solstice blessings to you, Reader! 🌞 In honor of this Solar sweet Holy Day, I’m coming to you with another Quarter Day Missive — all about the Summer Solstice 😍 In this longer-form share, you’ll find some musings around this Solar-powered point in the Wheel of the Year along with… 🌅 ancestral wisdom around Summer Solstice as the peak of Summer… {not the start!} 🦋 archetypes of the Solstice energy to help you connect in a deeper, more embodied & Earth-centric way 🗣️ the magical meaning behind the word SOLSTICE ❤️🔥 Summer Solstice rituals ~ from the wildly ambitious, to the super-sweet-and-simple 🌀 THE LITHA SPIRAL ~ a recap on yesterday’s community circle & ceremony for the Solstice {access the recording for free!} 🏔️ solstice as the peak of a seasonthis time of year you’ll hear Summer Solstice referred to as “the first day of summer!” — to which I inwardly sigh and side-eye… 🤨 like all the weirdly contorted modern narratives around the Wheel of the Year, part of me loves that the overculture even acknowledges an aspect of this ancestral tradition — the other part feels sad that we’re so disconnected from our relationship with the Earth and Sun as the focal points in this seasonal dance, that we can’t see how illogical the idea of the Solstice {literally also known as “Midsummer”} being anything other than the midpoint of Summertime. 🤷♀️ the Wheel of the Year holds a map for us to better understand our relationship to that life-giving star we dance around — the Sun’s positioning in relation to the Earth gives us the shifting seasons and the gift of witnessing the ebb and flow of life force. at the Summer Solstice, also known as “Litha” or Midsomer {Midsummer}, the Sun has reached its peak potency in the Northern Hemisphere. when we look to Summertime as the season of the growing life force, we can see that the Summer Solstice is actually the height of this seasonal upswing — Midsomer marks the peak of Summertime. why do i get my panties in a twist about this? because I want us to be in Right Relationship with how we honor our part in this wild solar system we’ve been placed in! it feels like a snub to the Great Creator to not fully honor the reality of what the Earth & Sun experience of each other through their seasonal dance. within this journey to Right Relationship, we also find deeper connection with ourselves. by honoring the Sun’s peak lifeforce at the Summer Solstice, can we also honor the unbelievable power and generative force that flowers within our female bodies at the time of ovulation? 🪞menstrual cycle mirrors and solstice archetypesarchetypes and Earthly metaphors are powerful ways for us to better understand our relationship to the world that births us. it’s through metaphor that our subconscious places us and says “ah, yes I see myself in this. I belong here.” we can find these metaphors and archetypes all around us — but {unsurprisingly} my favorite archetypal mirror is between the Seasons and the Menstrual Cycle. in your menstrual cycle ovulation is the peak point, the highest expression of your fertility {i.e. your lifeforce} — just as the Summer Solstice signifies the Sun’s strongest output of its own lifeforce but just like Beltane beckoned in the start of the Summer, your Inner Summer phase Garden of the Moon’s Inner Summer tea from the Inner Seasons Tea Set is designed to support you during the time around ovulation. other summer solstice archetypes to connect with… meaning behind the word SOLSTICEi am a GIANT word nerd. the proper term for this would be “etymology” etymology /ĕt″ə-mŏl′ə-jē/ the history of a linguistic form (such as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language i.e… how did a word come to be? with the word SOLSTICE it can be broken down into two parts with Latin origins: SOL + SISTERE SOL: Sun SISTERE: “stands still” at the time of the Solstices {the Summer and Winter peak points} the Sun seems to stand still in the sky as it reaches either the highest or lowest point in its arc. and so begins the journey in the opposite direction once again. on and on and on again… 🌞 a bevy of rituals for you to explore to honor the Solstice portal this weekend🌅 watch the sunrise & sunsets 🫂 circle up with local community 🔥 build a bonfire {or light a candle!} 🫖 harvest wild local herbs & make a Sun Tea 🥘 craft a meal w/ local ingredients 💨 Sain your homespace with foraged plants like mugwort, cedar, pine “Sain” is a a Gaelic word for a blessing or protective charm. one way to Sain is with a smoke cleansing. 🌳 build an altar outside using found items from nature 🏊♀️ go for a dunk in some wild water 🌀 get THE LITHA SPIRAL recordinglast night i had the honor of circling up with a number of women for our Summer Solstice workshop & ceremony. we journeyed through the Wheel of the Year, explored its mirror to our menstrual & life cycles, plus herbal & flower essence allies for this Season of Light portal… and then ventured into Vision Journey space to uncover our path forward in the second half of the ‘24 Wheel… there were Fox allies and Spirit Babies who came to visit — it was a perfectly magical time! 👇 you can grab the recording FOR FREE this weekend only 👇
alright... i'm off to find a lake or swimming hole on the river for a Litha Baptism 😉 may your Solstice Portal be so full of light and magic! BEAMING YOU WITH LOADS OF BIG LOVE, AND MANY MANY SWEET SOLSTICE BLESSINGS! 🌞 Big Love, all ways always
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Garden of the Moon
I'm Em, the herbalist, women’s health advocate, co-author of the Hay House published "Sacred Cycles Oracle," and Moon-loving-mystic behind Garden of the Moon. 🌙 Garden of the Moon's mission is to empower women to rewrite their limiting beliefs surrounding their bodies while rooting them in deep connection to the Earth.
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