Litha ~ June 21st

Alternate Names
Midsummer, Celtic 'Oak Festival'

Druidic Name
Alban Hefin or Alban Heruin (Light of the Shore)  

Christian Equivalent
Saint John the Baptist's Day (24th June)

Place in the Natural Cycle
Litha is the solar festival that marks the longest day of the year, with the sun rising and setting at its most northerly points. The summer quarter of the year runs from Beltane to Lughnassadh, so Litha stands at the midpoint of summer. 

Further Details
Litha celebrates the height of the sun's power and the abundance of summer. Nature is alive, and fields and fruits are growing towards harvest, but the blessing is mixed, for once light reaches its apogee it can only decline. Litha is a fairly modern term for the summer solstice, and it may be derived from an Anglo-Saxon word for 'moon' that referred to the sixth and seventh months of the year. The Druidic name for the festival, Alban Heruin or 'Light of the Shore', is very appropriate for this turning point of the year, lying at the midpoint between 'Light of the Earth' and 'Light of the Water' (the Druidic terms for the equinoctial celebrations). 

In the past, midsummer fires were lit for purification, protection and in the hope that the sun could be kept powerful for long enough to ensure a good harvest. People would leap over these fires in the belief that the crops would grow as high as they could jump. Drumming, dancing and singing were common, making this festival a noisy and social time. The full moon in June is known as the Mead or Honey Moon, and mead is a traditional drink for Litha, just as June is a popular time for weddings and hence honeymoons. 

Litha honors the apex of Light, sometimes symbolized in the crowning of the Oak King, God of the waxing year. At his crowning, the Oak King falls to his darker aspect, the Holly King, God of the waning year (days grow shorter after Litha). In terms of the God and Goddess cycle, the God is made King through his marriage to the Queen at Litha. 

Just as the winter solstice festival was appropriated by the Christian church to celebrate Christ's birth, so the popular summer solstice festival was taken to mark the birth of one of the church's most important saints: the cousin and baptizer of Jesus, John the Baptist. Other saints' days correspond to the supposed dates of their deaths, but John's is unusual in marking his birth. Saint John's Wort is a flower of traditional importance to midsummer celebrations. 

Litha is a time to consolidate your strengths and clear away negative thoughts and energies. It is a time to be joyful and full of life, while at the same time mindful of the waning of the light from now until Yule.

Source: http://www.byzant.com

 

Tools for the Ritual:

 
bulletSoft yellow and orange altar cloths
bulletLitha incense - a warm, sun-filled scent such as copal or vanilla
bulletGolden God candle
bulletSilver Goddess candle
bulletWhite altar candle
bulletQuarter candles and corresponding stones
bulletMatches, taper and snuffer
bulletVase of summer flowers and flowering herbs
bulletSimple feast - almond biscuits and mead
bulletA piece of newly completed creative work
bulletA yellow candle with a candleholder and bergamot essential oil for the sun spell.

Preparation:

At the beginning of the ritual mentally cleanse and sweep the area moving deosil. Set up the quarter candles and stones symbolizing the elements of the quarters. Decorate the altar with its cloths, and then the candles. Place the golden God candle to the right back of the altar and the silver Goddess candle to the left back. The vase of flowering herbs and summer flowers is placed before the God candle; the yellow candle, holder and bergamot oil are placed before the Goddess candle. The white altar candle goes at the center back of the altar between the Goddess and God candles. The creative work is placed at the front of the altar. Place the items for the simple feast to one side.

Take a shower or splash your face with water for purification. Sit quietly and meditate for a while, then ground and center.

Wait, feel the Sun's kiss on your skin.

The Ritual:

The ritual is begun. Moving deosil, light the Goddess, God, altar and quarter candles and incense. Cast the circle in glowing yellow light. Call the quarters and spirit center. Invoke the Goddess and God. Bid them all Hail and Welcome.

Wait, feel the Sun's kiss on your skin. Say:

The time of the Sun's greatness, strength and the zenith of the year has come as the wheel turns onwards into this joy-filled moment of warmth and as we feel the warmth of his rays he softly kisses the Earth's skin with the warm ardor of self-knowledge. She has busied herself in her growing and fertile strength and now lies before him in all her mature splendor. Still and secure in the beauty of fulfillment she offers life grown from her body and his warmth back to that same life which is part of her as he shines golden light on all who partake of the wealth. I raise my voice with the teeming, giving and receiving life all around me and sing back to his kissing rays:

Light, oh golden light
I feel your coming and know your going.
The time of your great shining is here
And in the fire of my spirit I nurture your flame.
I lie long and rest under the kisses of your rays
And know the fulfillment of
Fertility brought to fruition.
With the Earth I recline in joyful bounty and rejoice
To feel your light on my skin as she does.
Now to the life of all I offer all the life I have,
One to the other given and received
In a constant cycle of the wheel
Whose turning never ceases.

Wait, feel the Sun's kiss on your skin. Say:

Green Lady, Gaia, you are the Goddess of fulfillment and bounteous fertility. Your giving and taking stays true and constant in its cycle of life. You bless all your creatures with the fertile fire of life that burns in their souls. You bless them with the soft certainty of a steady death and the sure chance of nurturing new life from their old one, emptied anew into your cauldron of change. We all live and feed on those who have lived before us, and feed those who will come after us in our turn. You are the one to whom creation and destruction are one.

I come before you now in this time of your great fertility and bring my newly completed work as a symbol of my own. This work of my hand and mind is created in love and joy as your creatures are by you. I offer its beauty and completeness to you as a gift of life to life. May my fertile creativity be as constant as your own.

Wait, feel the Sun's kiss on your skin.

Sun Spell:

Taking the yellow candle, fix it into its holder and place them both before you on the altar.
Taking the bergamot oil, pour a little onto the tip of the middle finger of your projective hand.
With the oil, anoint the candle from the top to the middle and from the bottom to the middle. The whole of the candle should be anointed with no areas being missed or done twice.
Excess oil may be used to anoint your breastbone with a symbol that has meaning to you.

Bless and charge the candle with golden sun energy. This may be done by first holding your hands above it and visualizing a shining sphere of white light passing into it to drive out any negativity. When all the negativity is gone visualize a shining sphere of yellow sunlight streaming into the candle bringing with it the life-giving rays of sun energy. Fill the candle to the brim with the light of the sun. Say: Behold, I bless and purify this candle, charging it to be an agent of the light that lights life.

Lift the candle high into the air and then replace it on the altar. Say:

I fill this place with the life-giving rays of the Sun. As this candle burns all darkness of spirit is banished The cleansing heat of the sun chases it out and away.

Light the candle.
Visualize the cleansing heat of yellow sunlight filling the whole of your space.
Warmth and creativity are filling the air and the scent of summer flowers wafts through bringing life and the spacious of peace in its wake.
Explore the feelings this evokes in you.

Visualize tying a knot around the candle to bind the spell. Say:

I bind this spell by power of the three, May it harm none and bring good to me.

After the ritual is ended the lit candle should be placed in a central part of your home and allowed to burn down without being extinguished.

Proceed with the simple feast to ground yourself.

The End of the Ritual:

Address the Goddess with thanks, love and dedication. Say:

May I listen for and hear you,
May I look for and see you,
May I reach for and touch you,
May I wait for and find you.

Teach me what I need to know, and what I am now ready to know.
Your blessings are abundant, bless me abundantly.

Thank the spirits of the quarters and center, and also the Goddess and God. Ask them to go if they must but stay if they will. Bid them all Hail and Farewell. Open the circle. The circle is open but never broken.

The ritual is ended.

Source: http://www.ecauldron.com 

 

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