A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: The Moon and Magic by Elvenking

The seasonal patterns of the year are always interesting, but the solstices are perhaps the most interesting part of the year for me. The settlements in the far north and far south see drastic changes in the hours of daylight they get and will see the midnight sun, as well as the midday stars, a sight many never get to see. The solstices provide a rare opportunity to appreciate the world we live in for the natural cycles and all their chaos.

Celebrating the solstices can be done in a variety of ways. Whether or not they’re done in a formalised manner can heavily depend on the time, energy, and means available to each individual person. I definitely don’t have any of the resources necessary for a massive celebration, but what I do have is very occasional access to mead and consistent access to the dollar store and a university pagan club, so there is a lot of room for creativity.

The celebration we had with the pagan club I run took place in a park near the university campus, as this made the most sense, given it’s summer and it was right there. We had some paints in vaguely summery colours (blue, red, orange, green, yellow, things like that) and paper, for fun little summer paintings, like flowers or trees or something. I didn’t do much, but I did have a loosely plant looking thing and a specific bindrune I’ve been interested in getting as a tattoo on mine. We also had some snacks, including a bag of thematically appropriate Sun Chips. When celebrating at home with my partner, we didn’t have a huge celebration, as I had work that day, but we did have a very nice stew and dessert of watermelon and whipped cream accompanied by a nice summery mead. The mead itself had notes of strawberry and watermelon and other summer fruits.

This is how I celebrated the solstice this year, though I do hope to do something more next year.