It’s in these months that we can forage, and connect with nature in the warmth of her glow. There’s extensive symbolism around the Summer Solstice, so let’s take a deeper look at the history, symbolism, and how we can activate this energy in our rituals and lives.
Looking Back
Solstice in Gaelic means ‘Grainstad’ translating to ‘sun-stop’. It’s a beautiful way of expressing the natural rhythms of the select days before and after the Solstice, where the sun appears to rise and set in the same place on the horizon.
The Summer Solstice occurs when the sun moves across the northernmost path of its journey. This Solstice, which falls on the 20th or 21st of June each year (depending on the year) is the day of light- it contains more hours of daylight than any other time of year, making it the longest day. After this day, the nights will become longer and the days shorter.
Our Irish ancestors used to practice rituals and celebrate this time of abundance. Today, there are still gatherings that take place on hills, excitement from all walks of life. Traditionally, bonfires were lit in celebration on the sacred hills of Ireland, with the excitement of summer in the air. The Hill of Tara for instance would be flooded with movement, connection, excellent food, and dancing flames.
All over the world, souls would gather at fire festivals, celebrating the turn of a season and rise up with flames, feasting, dancing, and rituals. Even if others around you aren’t celebrating this Summer Solstice, you can always take a moment of gratitude and celebrate it yourself.
Aligning with the Goddess Ériu
Ériu ( or spelled Éire) translates to abundance and bounty, certainly reflected in the season of Summer. Ériu is considered the Goddess of Ireland, and there are many tales of how she connected with this land.
Before the human race, the Tuatha Dé Danann (or spelled Tuadi De Danan) were a tribe of gods and goddesses, connecting other worlds to this one, and bringing gifts of all natures to the world through spirit. As humans started to explore the earth and map out countries, they came across the land we now know as Ireland. Ériu was the first among her sisters to welcome them onto the shores, gifting the land and all its beauty to them on one condition: she asked them to name it after her. Ériu became one with the land, and the tribe disappeared into the Otherworld, a supernatural realm of Kingdoms below. The humans on the land named it Ireland, the English version of Ériu, in her honor. In all her beauty, she has appeared in many tales, poems, and artworks depicting Ireland.
I invite you to connect to the Goddess Ériu during this Summer Solstice. She’s the Goddess of Summer, Fertility, and Sustainability. She evokes our sensuality and welcomes us into the embrace of Gaia.
How to connect with Goddess Ériu
Connect with Nature, and lay in the gardens, fields, and forests with the intent of being intimate with the elements. You could lay naked in the grass, sit topless facing the beach or a mountain range, your location doesn’t matter, and can take nothing from this experience. As long as you’re connecting with her through Gaia, through Mother Earth, and the energetic fields that connect you with her, you will feel her presence overwhelm your body with wholesomeness, sensuality, and abundance.
Connecting with the land, with Ériu, and receiving guidance from both can be as simple as foraging, opening Sacred Space in nature, and creating intimacy with the earth and land. You can also light a candle and invite her energy to you. Beloved, I invite you to cultivate these rituals throughout the year, it’s incredibly powerful to set your intentions and manifest them through rituals on a daily/weekly basis.
Goddess Ériu invites you to step into your sovereignty, into your season of abundance. She invites you to step into your fertility and celebrate your bounty in all forms. Ériu invites us to reflect on: how we’re sharing our light into the world, and how are we expressing the wildness, the movement, and the passion within us?
If you’d like to learn more about Goddesses, the Celtic Wheel and how we can align with its festival and seasons, take a look at my Priestess Awakening course.
Symbolism
This is an incredible time to step into your truth, be unique, and flourish in your individuality. While we honor this day of light, we energetically create a ripple effect of awakening in our consciousness which lasts all summer until the Fall Equinox.
Summer Solstice is the perfect time to ignite the connection between the earth and ourselves, deepening and cultivating that intimacy through the divine energies around us. The Summer Solstice is an energetically charged day, a day to practice gratitude and set important intentions. I invite you to honor your inner voice during this time, allowing yourself time in nature and reflection on your intentions for this fiery time.
How do I do that?
When setting your intentions, give power to your thoughts and words by using “I am” statements and also giving gratitude to what you already have. While practicing your affirmations, set time aside to thank your guides, ancestors, and angels for what they’ve done for you. Be open to receiving, allowing the bounty and abundance of this day and season to enter all aspects of your life.
Create time for your rituals, with all the movement of this season you want to keep the momentum of passion and action we experienced during Bealtaine going through the new season. I invite you to let go of the old before entering this period, and because Summer is the season of fire, I have a beautiful ritual for you.
Find a quiet space that you feel comfortable being vulnerable in, and take a piece of paper and pen with you. Write down what held you down in the past, experiences, emotions, and pain that you’re ready to release. I invite you to write a letter to your past self. In this letter, you forgive yourself for allowing those things to weigh you down. Next, you can burn this letter. While it burns, practice gratitude over the things you have released, they have provided you with valuable lessons. Inhale and exhale deeply, perhaps meditate and with this ritual, you will enter this season with relief, newness, and an open heart.
The Wildness Within
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The summer solstice is a time of deepening the relationship with your inner wild woman, to be your authentic self, unapologetically and untamed. As our environment warms up, we can warm up our passions, desires, dreams, and goals with our inner flame. You have a unique howl, a calling that beckons you to step into your power.
Please feel welcomed into this space of divine wild women, where you’re safe to be yourself, to experiment with your inner wolf, and open all the doors you were too fearful to open in the past.
I invite you to take a look at the Wild Woman Awaken your Inner Howl article and, listen to the Awaken the Wild Woman Within podcast on your favorite streaming site.
Conversations with Fear
The element for this season is fire, our ancestors celebrated with bonfires lit high on hilltops and danced, feasted, performing transformational rituals in honor of the Summer Solstice. During this fiery time, there’s an increase in movement, action, and decisions. Big shifts are taking place and we’re surfacing from darkness into light.
We’re outdoors more, with warmer weather coaxing us into the light, among our tribe and community. Often, showing more skin in the heat and becoming more self-aware.
None of us are immune to fear, insecurities, or doubt, it’s a natural flow of life that we control through thoughts and actions. When your fear speaks to you during this time, instead of becoming submissive and falling prey to it — have a conversation.
Allow curiosity to take the wheel and ask your fear/doubt questions like:
- Why do I feel tense when I think of ……?
- What is this fear trying to protect me from?
- How can I compromise to still allow myself freedom?
- Am I struggling to let go of the past in order to move on?
- Where is this feeling of anxiety stemming from? Is it something I need to heal?
- How would this negatively affect me if I worked past my fear?
- How would this positively affect me if I worked past my fear?
In many ways, fear is a teacher. If we remove the emotion from the concept, there may be an underlying lesson for us to learn. There’s a common misconception that moving past fear is ignoring it — it’s not. We all need to work through it, learn from it, heal from it and listen to it in order to understand our own emotional eco-system better.
I’d love to encourage you to try something new. Think of the “doors” that were mentioned before, it’s easy to go past fear by avoiding it, leaving the door unopened to new possibilities. What’s more challenging is to work through it, open the door, and adventure into the newness of that world.
There’s beautiful magic in the act of running towards the storm instead of away from it, by running away from it, we then get caught up in the storm, running with it. The other side of your fear, your storm, could be a door to your howl, your calling, and your purpose.
Rays of Abundance
“One woman is a tiny divine spark in a timeless sisterhood tapestry collective; All of us are Wild Women.”
― Jan Porter
It’s a new season, an ignition of choices, courage, and healing. The Summer Solstice energy is here to bring abundance, Ériu desires nothing more than to bring you an emotional, spiritual, physical, and financial bounty. The energy around you is FOR you, not against you. Allow it, receive it and free yourself Beloved, from the restraints of the past, step into your power and awaken your inner wild woman.
Let Goddess Ériu activate the wildness inside you, allow her to form a strong cord between you and Gaia, and reflect on this while laying on the land, allowing yourself to be stripped down, to your core, so that only you and the land connect.
I invite you to ask yourself these questions Beloved:
- Is your inner “wild woman” being honored?
- Are you feeling in balance within your Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine?
- What has your inner fire helped you accomplish this year?
- What have you been trying to cram into your life that may not fit? Does it need letting go or just rearranging?
- What brings you alive and activates your inner Joy?
You deserve the sustainable glow, the slow burn of summer radiating from your skin, from your essence into the world. Feel the rays of sunlight, the golden hues of sunsets, and the fiery sparks of sunrises on your face. Soak in this time because it represents fullness, wholeness, sustainability, and sovereignty. Soak it in and feel the true energy of the summer Solstice enveloping you, reaching into every aspect of your rituals and routines.
You are being called, to rise up. There’s a new dawn, a new world and the wild women are rising from the core of the earth. Wild women are rising from the depths of the oceans, charged by the energy of the land, of their ancestors, and the sisterhood of each other. Ready to move the earth with their howls.
Are you ready to step into your role as Divine, Wild Woman?
