Photo by littlesprite; used with permission; all rights reserved.
With rain on the horizon, a lot of local Solstice rituals were cancelled because they were weather dependent. Or because it was just way too hot outside. Neither was a problem for us. 
The weather cooled down the moment the circle was cast, the mosquitoes we’d been slapping all day disappeared for the whole ritual, and the sky ebbed into twilight on the longest day of the year but the clouds never darkened. And even though there was no rain and no sweat, we ended up soaking ourselves with fresh water!
We wore fresh, bright summer roses behind our ears (for the female) and little oak branches (for the male). I’ve been in many rituals where the energy was flat or jagged, but this one was very peaceful and loaded with good feelings. It was spontaneous to a large degree, without any serious stress. I feel that rituals should never be about “performance” and this one certainly felt that way.
I’ve begun incorporating astrological correspondences much more heavily into my rits and using it as a teaching/manifesting tool. I had planned to share a more about our Summer Solstice but one of my students posted his thoughts on the ritual in such a perfect way that I’ll let him speak for me….
…We went back home to find Lorna looking radiant and every bit the Wiccan High Priestess. We performed a beautiful ritualwhere I got to cast and release the circle. We spent quite a lot of time in the West quarter, after Lorna explained that the Summer Solsticewhen the Sun is in the first degree of cancer, the sign of emotions and the Moonis the best time to focus on the emotions from the past year you want to honor and release, as well as to focus on the emotions and emotional state you want to manifest in the coming thirteen moons. We “washed our hands,” both literally and spiritually, of all the emotions we no longer wanted or needed, and then drank in new water and new emotions. At the end of the ritual, as Lorna was releasing the West quarter, a small wind started up right in fromt of usshaking all the leaves in the West of the backyard and cooling us all. It seemed that the West Windwest being the direction of Water and emotionshad sprung up to carry all of our past wounds away, and to give us a promise that everything we’d asked for would be given.
Then, we had a feast. Not a little family dinnera full-on Brian-Jaques-Redwall-worthy feast. Roast chicken and rosemary potatoes and watermelon and corn and bread and pie… it was wonderful.
Yes. It was.
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