Summer Solstice Quotes

She looked up, her face pink as a Christmas ham. “You ever try chasing down a car?” she gasped. “I’ll one-up you. I gave Scott my hot dog and asked if he’d go to Summer Solstice with me.” “What does the hot dog have to do with anything?” “I said he’d be a wiener if he didn’t go with me.” Vee wheezed laughter. “I’d have run harder had I known I’d get to see you call him a wiener.

What was your favorite day of the year? The summer solstice. June twenty-first. The longest day of the year.

The festival of the summer solstice speaks of love and light, of freedom and generosity of spirit. It is a beautiful time of year where vibrant flowers whisper to us with scented breath, forests and woodlands hang heavy in the summer’s heat and our souls become enchanted with midsummer magic.

The summer solstice is a time for strength and vitality for action and movement.

Summer solstice came and went, and in a way, I find that sad because even though it is the longest day of the dear and marks the beginning of summer, from now on, the days grow shorter and shorter. It's true that some parties end before they even begin.

We’ll stretch this day out as long as possible, like we’re the summer solstice.

The best part of falling in love is the mystery and excitement of not knowing. The worst part of falling in love is the mystery and agony of not knowing.

Holy sea turtles!" - Arabella Valli, The Equinox (Book Two of the Summer Solstice Series)

It was the twenty-first of June and Bitsy announced a Summer Solstice party.

It is wearing your pajamas and watching Lord of the Rings the day before Christmas, it is sitting in your window watching the weather while sipping your favorite tea, and it is looking into the bonfire on summer solstice surrounded by your friends and family while your twistbread slowly bakes.

Midsummer’s Eve, the summer solstice, when the day is so long it seems for once there is all the time in the world.

Point your fire like a flower.

And late at night when he folds her in his arms beside the crackling fire and kisses the space just behind her ear, she knows he's falling in love with her. And maybe he's loved her long before this, long before he pulled her from the water on the night of the summer solstice—the night that is a blur in her memory. But she doesn't ask. She doesn't want to know about the before. Because she loves him now, with the wind seeping through the cracks in the cottage windows...the world stretched out before them. They have eternity. Or even if it's just one life, one long, singular life—that's enough.

More than anything, I'd like to go to a park today. I want to sit in a swing, drink chocolate milk, and not think about anything in the world except the pleasure of that moment. I want to know what a normal life feels like because I can't remember anymore. I want to drag my feet on the ground as I swing back and forth. I want to feel the fresh, spring chi on my skin. I'm very tempted to get out my Halloween decorations today because looking at them always gives me a little burst of excitement. I can't, though, because I have a rule: No Halloween decorations before June 21. That's the summer solstice, so after that we're officially in the second half of the year. Another rule I abide by is no peppermint until November 1. I only eat peppermint between November 1 and January 6, because that keeps it special. If you don't do things like that in here, then there's nothing to look forward to.

What Whileawayans Celebrate The full moon The Winter solstice (You haven't lived if you haven't seen us running around in our skivvies, banging on pots and pans, shouting "Come back, sun! Goddammit, come back! Come back!") The Summer solstice (rather different) The autumnal equinox The vernal equinox The flowering of trees The flowering of bushes The planting of seeds Happy copulation Unhappy copulation Longing Jokes Leaves falling off the trees (where deciduous) Acquiring new shoes Wearing same Birth The contemplation of a work of art Marriages Sport Divorces Anything at all Nothing at all Great ideas Death

He loved getting crucified at the summer and winter solstices,” Norma told Harry. Norma listened while the invisible presence added something to this. “He says you should try it, Harry. A crucifixion and a good blow job. Heaven on Earth.

May Day is the ancient festival of Beltane, the midway point between the vernal (spring) equinox and the summer solstice.

We'll stretch this day out as long as possible, like we're the summer solstice.

She pulled out her journal. "The lights-- I mean, lanterns-- always appear a month and eight days before the summer solstice," she said, checking her figures and drawings for the thousandth time. "May twelfth. Yeah," Flynn said.

What is your favorite day of the year? The summer solstice. June twenty-first. The longest day of the year. It was a cute answer. But on cooler reflection, it struck me that when you're asked your favorite day of the year, there's a certain hubris in giving any day in June as your answer. It suggests that the particulars of your life are so terrific, and your command over your station so secure, that all you could possibly hope for is additional daylight in which to celebrate your lot.

Conservatism is far from what I’m aiming at in proclaiming the establishment of a Sethian left-hand path tradition in the West as one of the first missions of the SLM. In fact, in establishing such a tradition, true to the spirit of sacred transgression and holy subversion that is essential to both Seth and the left-hand path, we are opening a door that enlightens through endangerment, that awakens through risk and peril: this is a radical (from Latin radix, root, implying how deep a change is required) enterprise that is the very opposite of conservatism.” --“From the Eye of the Storm” (Zeena's column as Hemet-Neter Tepi Seth for the SLM), Volume I - Summer Solstice issue (2003): "Building a Sethian Left-Hand Path Tradition in the West.

So let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘I’m supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead. ‘Check,’ Chiron said Find the most powerful weapon in the universe.’ Check.’ ‘And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days.’ ‘That’s about right.

To grasp the movement of the sun in the Arctic is no simple task. Imagine standing precisely at the North Pole on June 21, the summer solstice. Your feet rest on a crust of snow and windblown ice. If you chip the snow away you find the sea ice, grayish white and opaque. Six or seven feet underneath is the Arctic Ocean, dark, about 29°F and about 13,000 feet deep. You are standing 440 miles from the nearest piece of land, the tiny island of Oodaaq off the coast of northern Greenland. You stand in each of the world’s twenty-four time zones and north of every point on earth. On this day the sun is making a flat 360° orbit exactly 23½° above the horizon.

…it is summer and there is freedom, and time, and luck to be had.

June verges. It shifts. And it holds two forces at once: the start of summer, the start of darkening.

When they reached the Gate at the heart of the Old Square, its quartz archway as clear as a frozen pond, the sun was just hitting its upper edge, refracting and casting small rainbows against one of the buildings flanking it. On Summer Solstice, when the sun lined up perfectly with the Gate, it filled the entire square with rainbows, so many that it was like walking inside a diamond.

No wonder the summer solstice had been such a fun day in northern Europe before Christian missionaries arrived from the sunny south. If priests had not driven sex underground, what would the north have been like? Would art have flourished in the absence of sexual repression? What about artillery and fortification? The Reformation? The Thirty Years War? The French Revolution? The final perfection of murder as blood sport at Verdun and Dresden and in the Gulag? In short, where would we be without Jesus?

...some evidence seems to exist that an idea prevailed that in the fairy sphere there is a reversal of the seasons, our winter being their summer. Some such belief seems to have been known to Robert Kirk, for he tells us that 'when we have plenty they [the fairies] have scarcity at their homes.' In respect of the Irish fairies they seem to have changed their residences twice a year: in May, when the ancient Irish "flitted" from their winter houses to summer pastures, and in November, when they quitted these temporary quarters.

The bodily ascension of Jesus in Roman Christianity -which has not been granted to David- is a calendrical event which takes place in synchronicity with (i.e. in reference to) the solar culmination on the Summer Solstice when the Sun/Son reaches its highest point in the sky; as the circular zodiac of Dendera reveals to us through its illustrated decanic structure. The Passover on the other hand occurs - as we see on the zodiac and the decanic calendar- during the low tide of the Nile river; which is due around the time of the Winter Solstice.

Deacon met my glare with an impish grin. “Anyway, did you celebrate Valentine’s Day when you were slumming with the mortals?” I blinked. “Not really. Why?” Aiden snorted and then disappeared into one of the rooms. “Follow me,” Deacon said. “You’re going to love this. I just know it.” I followed him down the dimly-lit corridor that was sparsely decorated. We passed several closed doors and a spiral staircase. Deacon went through an archway and stopped, reaching along the wall. Light flooded the room. It was a typical sunroom, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, wicker furniture, and colorful plants. Deacon stopped by a small potted plant sitting on a ceramic coffee table. It looked like a miniature pine tree that was missing several limbs. Half the needles were scattered in and around the pot. One red Christmas bulb hung from the very top branch, causing the tree to tilt to the right. “What do you think?” Deacon asked. “Um… well, that’s a really different Christmas tree, but I’m not sure what that has to do with Valentine’s Day.” “It’s sad,” Aiden said, strolling into the room. “It’s actually embarrassing to look at. What kind of tree is it, Deacon?” He beamed. “It’s called a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “Deacon digs this thing out every year. The pine isn’t even real. And he leaves it up from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Which thank the gods is the day after tomorrow. That means he’ll be taking it down.” I ran my fingers over the plastic needles. “I’ve seen the cartoon.” Deacon sprayed something from an aerosol can. “It’s my MHT tree.” “MHT tree?” I questioned. “Mortal Holiday Tree,” Deacon explained, and smiled. “It covers the three major holidays. During Thanksgiving it gets a brown bulb, a green one for Christmas, and a red one for Valentine’s Day.” “What about New Year’s Eve?” He lowered his chin. “Now, is that really a holiday?” “The mortals think so.” I folded my arms. “But they’re wrong. The New Year is during the summer solstice,” Deacon said. “Their math is completely off, like most of their customs. For example, did you know that Valentine’s Day wasn’t actually about love until Geoffrey Chaucer did his whole courtly love thing in the High Middle Ages?” “You guys are so weird.” I grinned at the brothers. “That we are,” Aiden replied. “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” “Hey Alex,” Deacon called. “We’re making cookies tomorrow, since it’s Valentine’s Eve.” Making cookies on Valentine’s Eve? I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as Valentine’s Eve. I laughed as I followed Aiden out of the room. “You two really are opposites.” “I’m cooler!” Deacon yelled from his Mortal Holiday Tree room

Her bed faced three large uncurtained windows that looked due eat, and she loved the endless variety of sunrises that greeted her from day to day. Growing up in Florida and in the suburbs, she had never realized how the sun paced back and forth through the year, like a restless dog on a tether. During the winter it rose far to the southeast and skulked along the ridgeline, disappearing in mid-afternoon. But now it rising a little past due east, on its way to the northeast where it would achieve the summer solstice, then begin the slow day-by-day journey back to the winter solstice. Watching the sunrise, with its reminder of the endless and inevitable cycles of life, was, she thought, her version of religion.

There's no such thing as witches. But there used to be. It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash. Witches lurked in every tangled wood and waited at every midnight-crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountaintops and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons; they charmed the stars to dance beside them on the summer solstice and rode to battle with familiars at their heels. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes, because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs. But then came the plague and the purges. The dragons were slain and the witches were burned and the night belonged to men with torches and crosses. Witching isn’t all gone, of course. My grandmother, Mama Mags, says they can’t ever kill magic because it beats like a great red heartbeat on the other side of everything, that if you close your eyes you can feel it thrumming beneath the soles of your feet, thumpthumpthump. It’s just a lot better-behaved than it used to be. Most respectable folk can’t even light a candle with witching, these days, but us poor folk still dabble here and there. Witch-blood runs thick in the sewers, the saying goes. Back home every mama teaches her daughters a few little charms to keep the soup-pot from boiling over or make the peonies bloom out of season. Every daddy teaches his sons how to spell ax-handles against breaking and rooftops against leaking. Our daddy never taught us shit, except what a fox teaches chickens — how to run, how to tremble, how to outlive the bastard — and our mama died before she could teach us much of anything. But we had Mama Mags, our mother’s mother, and she didn’t fool around with soup-pots and flowers. The preacher back home says it was God’s will that purged the witches from the world. He says women are sinful by nature and that magic in their hands turns naturally to rot and ruin, like the first witch Eve who poisoned the Garden and doomed mankind, like her daughter’s daughters who poisoned the world with the plague. He says the purges purified the earth and shepherded us into the modern era of Gatling guns and steamboats, and the Indians and Africans ought to be thanking us on their knees for freeing them from their own savage magics. Mama Mags said that was horseshit, and that wickedness was like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. She said proper witching is just a conversation with that red heartbeat, which only ever takes three things: the will to listen to it, the words to speak with it, and the way to let it into the world. The will, the words, and the way. She taught us everything important comes in threes: little pigs, bill goats gruff, chances to guess unguessable names. Sisters. There wer ethree of us Eastwood sisters, me and Agnes and Bella, so maybe they'll tell our story like a witch-tale. Once upon a time there were three sisters. Mags would like that, I think — she always said nobody paid enough attention to witch-tales and whatnot, the stories grannies tell their babies, the secret rhymes children chant among themselves, the songs women sing as they work. Or maybe they won't tell our story at all, because it isn't finished yet. Maybe we're just the very beginning, and all the fuss and mess we made was nothing but the first strike of the flint, the first shower of sparks. There's still no such thing as witches. But there will be.

Prairie Hymn: On the tongue a hymnal of American names, And the silence of falling snow—Glacier, Bearpaw, Bitterroot, Wind River, Yellowstone. I dreamed among the ice caps long ago, Ranging with the sun on the inward slope, Down the wheel of seasons and the solstices To the tilted moon and cradle of the stars. There was the prairie, always reaching. Time was sundered, and the light bore wonder. The earth broke open and I held my breath. In the far range of vision the prairie shone bright As brit on the sea, crescive and undulant… The range of dawn and dusk; the continent lay out In prairie shades, in a vast carpet of color and light. In the Sun Dance I was entranced, I drew in the smoke Of ancient ice and sang of the wide ancestral land. Rain-laden clouds ringed the horizon, and the hump-backed Shape sauntered and turned. Mythic deity! It became the animal representation of the sun, an In the prairie wind there was summer in the spring.

Thus, I have always been more of an envious observer than a participant in physical activities, but there have been glowing exceptions, such as what happened at the end of a summer-solstice celebration I attended in California, on a ranch in the foothills of the Sierras. The women at the event were of all ages. But in the evening, when they had found a swing, they became a group of young girls. The swing was on a long rope and swept out over a slope. In the twilight, it was like flying to the stars. Or so they said. Everyone had tried it except me. When the others had wandered indoors, I stayed, looking at the swing and feeling that old shame of being the scaredy-cat, even though probably no one had noticed. Then a woman much younger than I appeared and offered to show me how to use the swing. I said no, I didn’t want to. But she ignored that. She promised she would never push me harder than I wanted. And she held out the swing. It took some time. But somehow I felt safe with her, and I built up the courage to swing out toward the stars like the others. I never saw that young woman again, but I will always be grateful not only for the experience but for the respect and understanding she showed as she taught me how—one gentle swing at a time.

I was most pleasantly surprised, with this chart, to see a Yod pointing at the Moon. After all, what other planet influences changeable behaviour and creates a strong magnetic pull? I am tempted to say that the problem of the Bermuda Triangle has been solved: it was the Moon all along! But it is obviously more complicated than that. For one thing, there is a theory that there is an energy vortex operating through the earth, with a corresponding ‘problem’ area on the other side of the world, based near the west coast of Australia in the Indian Ocean. I noticed when I was looking at my Atlas that these trouble spots are on, or near, the Tropic of Cancer in the north, and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south. Being that these circles are the northern-most and southern-most positions of the Sun as it passes over the earth at the summer and winter solstices, there must be a residue of magnetic energy along those lines. To create a vortex, another energy line must be intersecting each tropical line at a right angle (90°). We can see this energy line on the chart: the Pluto-Midheaven opposition would be operating at full strength, as the critical degree is within 45’ of true (meaning, that the difference between the position of Pluto and the Midheaven, directly overhead, is almost exactly 180°). Because Mars is conjunct to Pluto, also opposite to the Midheaven, stormy weather, previously noted in this book, was raging: a potent combination.

Even when Meister Eckhart writes as a Christian about suffering—the topic where we should least expect common ground with Buddhism—he finds this common ground with sleepwalking sureness, as long as it is the mystic in him who speaks. Take this, for instance: “Our Lord says in the Psalms of a good man that he is with him in his suffering.” With him! This is not the God above the clouds, enthroned in immovable detachment. This is a lover who suffers when we suffer. I ponder this mystery, and a word of the Dalai Lama comes to my mind; it shall stand at the end of this foreword, since his name stands at its beginning. “Your Holiness,” someone asked, “your Buddhist tradition has so wonderful a way of overcoming suffering. What do you have to say to the Christian tradition that seems to be preoccupied with pain?” With his compassionate smile the Dalai Lama gave an answer that went straight to the common ground of the two traditions. “Suffering,” he said, “is not overcome by leaving pain behind. Suffering is overcome by bearing pain for the sake of others.” (Christ and Bodhisattva embraced at that moment. Across seven hundred years of history I could hear Meister Eckhart laughing with joy. Or was it God’s eternal laughter?) BROTHER DAVID STEINDL-RAST, O.S.B. Big Sur, California Summer Solstice 1995

She kept the solstices and the equinoxes, both vernal and autumnal, the first of May, All Saints, all summers, kept them, but not out of reverence for the past.

door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover’s said “…worried about Percy, sir.” I froze. I’m not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. I inched closer. “…alone this summer,” Grover was saying. “I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—” “We would only make matters worse by rushing him,” Mr. Brunner said. “We need the boy to mature more.” “But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline—” “Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can.” “Sir, he saw her.…” “His imagination,” Mr. Brunner insisted. “The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that.” “Sir, I…I can’t fail in my duties again.” Grover’s voice was choked with emotion. “You know what that would mean.” “You haven’t failed, Grover,” Mr. Brunner said kindly. “I should have seen her for what she was. Now let’s just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—” The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud. Mr. Brunner went silent. My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner’s office door, the shadow of something

It is believed the pyramid was built around 800 AD. It has ninety-one steps on each of its four sides. There are ninety-one days between each annual solar cycle—winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, and fall equinox. So, if you take the four cycles per year, which is ninety-one times four, that equals three hundred and sixty-four days. Then you add the top step.” “That makes it three-hundred sixty-five. It matches up to our calendar,” Natalie said, and Felipe nodded. “Sí. And what’s also quite amazing is the alignment of the pyramid is such that in the late afternoon of March 21, the low sun casts a shadow resembling a wriggling snake. Thousands of people come during the spring equinox each year to watch the feathered serpent god appear to crawl down the side of the pyramid and illuminate one of the serpent heads at the bottom.

These were songs from Merrie England’s springtime, and later, on Summer Solstice (1971), they would much better capture the mood of sun-kissed medieval Arcadia.

The power is yours to make change in your life, and in the world all around. This is your blessing and your responsibility. Use your power wisely.

I figure the first thing you ought to know is that there's no such thing as witches. But there used to be. It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash, and witches lurker in every tangled wood, waited at every midnight crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountaintops, and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons; they charmed the stars to dance beside them on the summer solstice and feuded with thunderstorms; they rode to battle with fire in the palms and familiars at their heels. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs.

I figure the first thing you ought to know is that there's no such thing as witches. But there used to be. It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash, and witches lurked in every tangled wood, waited at every midnight crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountaintops, and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons; they charmed the stars to dance beside them on the summer solstice and feuded with thunderstorms; they rode to battle with fire in their palms and familiars at their heels. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs.

The linear zodiac of Dendera is different from the circular one in that it emphasizes the cosmic role that Mars plays in ancient Egyptian theology and hence calendrically incorporates Mars' behavior into the zodiac. The face of Hathor with the birth of the Sun signal the arrival of the Summer Solstice - hence the lineal cut on the circular zodiac. This theological implication confirms Laird Scranton's work that something must have happened which led civilizations to change their calendars by applying additional epagomenal days, but it differs in the chronology since I provided new evidence based on my work that the zodiacs of Dendera are not from the Ptolemaic period (as claimed by academia) but rather much older than that. Therefore, this does not go against Scranton's thesis but puts it in the context of an anticipated Prophecy that eventually took place in history.

The heart of a woman is really strange. There are days we long for a fireplace where we can warm our hearts through the night. If we don't have one we grumble, but we take solace in the company of family and friends. Yet through it all, we yearn for that fiery hearth that we can tend to all through the night. Though summer is already here and the summer solstice is just around the corner, my heart aches and I feel cold. I long for that someone and I feel cold...For no apparent reason, I feel cold.

Thanks again to Alan Butler's work, this time I was able to inspect the work of Hesiod in connection with the Phaistos Disc for being calendrical, and now I view it through the lens of ancient Egypt by projecting it directly onto the circular zodiac of Dendera. Hesiod has used three different references to the days in his work: (the first ..); (the middle ..); and (.. of the month). With this system which he had used, I linked the "first" references to the zodiac's portals on the East; the "middle" references to the Fullmoon days of the month which are located on the zodiac's western portals; and the "of the month" references to the zodiac's days which are located right after passing by and finishing the rotation beyond the eastern portals. Therefore, Hesiod has recognized Egypt's month's count of days (And tell your slaves the thirtieth is the month's best-suited day). He has also explicitly identified the beginning of the Equinox and Solstice portals on the zodiac based on the zodiac's anticlockwise orientation while emphasizing the more prominent role of the Summer Solstice in the calendar system (The first and fourth and seventh days are holy days to men, the eighth and ninth as well). Hesiod has also issued a warning against, Apophis, the snake demon (But shun the fifth day, fifth days are both difficult and dread). Hesiod has recognized Egypt's royal-cosmic copulation event that takes place at the culmination of the Summer Solstice (The first ninth, though, for human beings, is harmless, quite benign for planting and for being born; indeed, it's very fine For men and women both; this day is never bad all through) Hesiod has identified the exact position of the newly born infant boy on the zodiac (For planting vines the middle sixth is uncongenial but good for the birth of males) and also established the Minoan bull's head rhyton connection with Egypt (The middle fourth, which is a day to soothe and gently tame the sheep and curved-horned), (Open a jar on the middle fourth),(And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Hesiod gave Osiris' role in the ancient Egyptian agrarian Theology to men (two Days of the waxing month stand out for tasks men have to do, the eleventh and the twelfth) and pointed out the right location of the boar on the zodiac (Geld your boar on the eighth of the month) and counted on top of these days the days of the mule which comes afterward (on the twelfth day of the month [geld] the long-laboring mule) - since the reference to the mule in the historical text comes right after that of the boar's and both are grouped together conceptually with the act of gelding. He has also identified the role of Isis for resurrecting Osiris after the Summer Solstice event (On the fourth day of the month bring back a wife to your abode) and even referred to the two female figures on the zodiac and identified them as, Demeter and Persephone, the two mythical Greek queens (Upon the middle seventh throw Demeter's holy grain) where we see them along with the reference to Poseidon (i.e. fishes and water) right next to them as the account exists in the Greek mythology. Even more, Hesiod knows when the sequence of the boats' appearances begins on the zodiac (And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Astonishingly enough, he mentions the solar eclipse when the Moon fully blocks the Sun (the third ninth's best of all, though this is known by few) and also glorifies sunrise and warns from sunset on that same day (Again, few know the after-twentieth day of the month is best ..) and identifies the event's dangerous location on the west (.. at dawn and that it worsens when the sun sinks in the west).

Do you even celebrate Solstice in the Summer Court?

So let me get this straight,” I said. “I’m supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead.” “Check,” Chiron said. “Find the most powerful weapon in the universe.” “Check.” “And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days.” “That’s about right.

TOWARD THE SOLSTICE 9 A.M., already the day is gathering into heat, and the hills today are a little less green than they were, like the flowers closing now into one concentrated whorl, their color pulled to a tightening heart. I woke this morning thinking of your lips, how they lie flat, almost smiling when you sleep, and of your hair that feels much like a child’s; in a room somewhere east of here you may have turned within that thought, caught in the cool scent of bleach and hotels, the white hum of summer night rising towards day.

Around the time of the summer solstice, when the sun shines brightest on our little corner of the world, field after field of hay is cut, baled and carted away in a non-stop parade of wagons, up and down the rural routes.

1. Spring equinox to summer solstice: the growing tide 2. Summer solstice to autumn equinox: the reaping tide 2. Autumn equinox to winter solstice: the resting tide 3. Winter solstice to spring equinox: the cleansing tide

Why doesn’t summer vacation last until the twenty-first of September? After all, the season doesn’t come to its conclusion on Labor Day weekend. The season of summer lasts until the autumnal equinox—just as surely as the season of spring lasts until the summer solstice.

Today is one of the four cardinal points of the year, Summer Solstice, the day of greatest light.

What he tells us about the pre-conversion calendar is a tiny part of a lengthy work, and it doesn’t take long to summarize. Before the conversion, he suggests, the Anglo-Saxons used a lunisolar calendar and divided the year into two seasons, summer and winter. Winter began on the full moon of the month roughly equivalent to October in the Julian calendar, which for this reason was called Winterfylleð. The two months around each solstice shared a name, suggesting that these were important turning points of the year, and Bede says that the year began on 25 December (that is, probably the winter solstice), which was called Modraniht, ‘mothers’ night’.

There will be days it is loud, and others it is heavy. For every summer solstice there is darkness on the other side of the world. There will be days that staying alive will be an all consuming challenge. And accepting love an act of tremendous courage. Asking for help even more so. Days of loneliness and doubt will compound and maybe there will be whole months when I cannot see the sky and all the perspective I have now is lost in the crush. There will be peaks and dales, rivers and roads but I will do my best to keep walking out of the darkness. I will let it all happen to me, beauty and terror and love and hate and ugliness and anger and fear. I know that no feeling is final and the fear only wins when I stop fighting. I will push through it all and see you on the other side. I'll see myself on the other side. Until then I will do my best to keep breathing.

You said it yourself. For the summer solstice. It’s important to me to be in nature for the celebration. I’m a great fan of Thoreau, as you’ve probably gathered. He said, ‘Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.’ At midnight before the solstice, I’ll light a fire, and hold a vigil until sunrise.

Rhys kept starting at the table as he said, 'I didn't know. That you were with Tamlin. That you were staying at the Spring Court. Amarantha sent me that day after the Summer Solstice because I'd been so successful on Calanmai. I was prepared to mock him, maybe pick a fight. But then I got into that room, and the scent was familiar, but hidden... And then I saw the plate, and felt the glamour, and... There you were. Living in my second-most enemy's house. Dining with him. Reeking of his scent. Looking at him like... Like you loved him.' The whites of his knuckles showed. 'And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin. I had to scare you, and Lucien, but mostly Tamlin. Because I saw how he looked at you, too. So what I did that day...' His lips were pale, tight. 'I broke into your mind and held it enough that you felt it, that it terrified you, hurt you. I made Tamlin beg- as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. Because she was going to find you. If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you. 'But I was so selfish- I was so stupidly selfish that I couldn't walk away without knowing your name. And you were looking at me like I was a monster, so I told myself it didn't matter, anyway. But you lied when I asked. I knew you did. I had your mind in my hands, and you had the defiance and foresight to lie to my face. So I walked away from you again. I vomited my guts up as soon as I left.' My lips wobbled, and I pressed them together. 'I checked back once. To ensure you were gone. I went with them the day they sacked the manor- to make my performance complete. I told Amarantha the name of that girl, thinking you'd invented it. I had no idea... I had no idea she'd sent her cronies to retrieve Clare. But if I admitted my lie...' He swallowed hard. 'I broke into Clare's head when they brought her Under the Mountain. I took away her pain, and told her to scream when expected to. So they... they did those things to her, and I tried to make it right, but... After a week, I couldn't let them do it. Hurt her like that anymore. So while they tortured her, I slipped into her mind again and ended it. She didn't feel any pain. She felt none of what they did to her, even at the end. But... But I still see her. And my men. And the others that I killed for Amarantha.' Two tears slid down his cheeks, swift and cold. He didn't wipe them away as he said, 'I thought it was done after that. With Clare's death. Amarantha believed you were dead. So you were safe, and far away, and my people were safe, and Tamlin had lost, so... It was done. We were done. But then... I was in the back of the throne room that day the Attor brought you in. And I have never known such horror, Feyre, as I did when I watched you make that bargain. Irrational, stupid terror- I didn't know you. I didn't even know your name. But I thought of those painter's hands, the flowers I'd seen you create. And how she'd delight in breaking your fingers apart. I had to stand and watch as the Attor and its cronies beat you. I had to watch the disgust and hatred on your face as you looked at me, watched me threaten to shatter Lucien's mind. And then- then I learned your name. Hearing you say it... it was like an answer to a question I'd been asking for five hundred years.

Murder and Mayhem in the Land of the Midnight Sun.

They met perhaps every evening at dinner time, or at least every Sunday (day of the Sun), for the planetary week had been in operation since the first century. Certain days in the year were more specially celebrated: the solstices of summer and winter (our 'Christmas', natalis solis invicti), the equinoxes (especially spring, the season when the world was born and Mithras saved it). Besides the consecrated water and bread Oust., I Apol., 66, 4; Tert., Praescr., 40, 4), wine, as a substitute for blood, and various kinds of meat were consumed, often the flesh of victims sacrificed to the gods of the city, which was sold in the markets.

Hati-hati jangan sesumbar. Karakteristik cinta memang begitu. Diam-diam merasuk mengalir melalui pembuluh darah lalu menginfeksi hati sebelum kita menyadari apa yang terjadi.

Long light and there’s something in the air. Frog-song and bug-song in the air. Honeysuckle in the air. Dew in the air and beading on the tips of petal tongues.

People too close—they get in the way. It’s harder to hear the wind. Harder to see the world around us. They shine so bright, it’s like trying to see a match flame at noon on the summer solstice. You can’t see anything but the brightest light.

As they moved on he was offered some STP, a powerful hallucinogenic which had become infamous after five thousand high-dosage tablets had been given away weeks earlier at the Summer Solstice Celebration in Golden Gate Park. The delayed onset of its effects meant a number of users had taken extra hits and ended up in hospital.302 Harrison declined the STP, but his response was seen as a snub. ‘I could see all the spotty youths,’ he recalled, ‘but I was seeing them from a twisted angle. It was like the manifestation of a scene from an Hieronymus Bosch painting, getting bigger and bigger, fish with heads, faces like vacuum cleaners coming out of shop doorways… They were handing me things – like a big Indian pipe with feathers on it, and books and incense – and trying to give me drugs. I remember saying to one guy: “No thanks, I don’t want it.” And then I heard his whining voice saying, “Hey, man – you put me down.” It was terrible. We walked quicker and quicker through the park and in the end we jumped in the limo, said, “Let’s get out of here,” and drove back to the airport.’303 The crowd began to grow hostile as they returned to the limousine, and those outside began rocking the vehicle as their faces pressed against the windows. The narrow escape increased Harrison’s resolve to move away from LSD. ‘That was the turning point for me – that’s when I went right off the whole drug cult and stopped taking the dreaded lysergic acid. I had some in a little bottle – it was liquid. I put it under a microscope, and it looked like bits of old rope. I thought that I couldn’t put that into my brain any more.

the year first. Thank the gods, it was the same year it had been when we went in. Then I noticed the date: June twentieth. We had been in the Lotus Casino for five days. We had only one day left until the summer solstice. One day to complete our quest.

Lovingly referred to as the three rays, the central ray represents the sun at its zenith during the summer and winter solstices, the left ray the sun at midday on the vernal equinox, and the right-hand ray at noon during the autumnal equinox. These delightful correspondences connect the symbol to the cycle of the sun and the season.

The war on Christianity was also made manifest in the efforts to introduce neopaganism into the lives of the people. Joseph Ratzinger recalled that a young teacher in the village erected a maypole as a symbol of the pagan concept of the “life force.” He organized festivals for the summer solstice in homage to the sacredness of nature and dismissed traditional notions of sin, virtue, and redemption as alien ideas imposed by the cultural imperialism of the Jewish and Roman religion of Christianity. The old religious ideas had to make way for the new order, and the new order demanded a new age. Sixty years later, in his memoirs, Cardinal Ratzinger compared the anti-Christian neopaganism of the Nazis with the anti-Christian neopaganism of our own day: “When nowadays I hear how in many parts of the world Christianity is criticized as a destruction of individual cultural identity and an imposition of European values, I am amazed at how similar the types of argumentation are and at how familiar many a turn of phrase sounds.

Mencius said: “In good years, young men are mostly fine. In bad years, they’re mostly cruel and violent. It isn’t that Heaven endows them with such different capacities, only that their hearts are mired in such different situations. Think about barley: if you plant the seeds carefully at the same time and in same place, they’ll all sprout and grow ripe by summer solstice. If they don’t grow the same – it’s because of inequities in richness of soil, amounts of rainfall, or the care given them by farmers. And so, all members belonging to a given species of thing are the same. Why should humans be the lone exception? The sage and I – surely we belong to the same species of thing. “That’s why Master Lung said: Even if a cobbler makes a pair of sandals for feet he’s never seen, he certainly won’t make a pair of baskets. Sandals are all alike because feet are the same throughout all beneath Heaven. And all tongues savor the same flavors. Yi Ya was just the first to discover what our tongues savor. If taste differed by nature from person to person, the way horses and dogs differ by species from me, then how is it people throughout all beneath Heaven savor the tastes Yi Ya savored? People throughout all beneath Heaven share Yi Ya’s tastes, therefore people’s tongues are alike throughout all beneath Heaven. “It’s true for the ear too: people throughout all beneath Heaven share Maestro K’uang’s sense of music, therefore people’s ears are alike thoughout all beneath Heaven. And it’s no less true for the eye: no one throughout all beneath Heaven could fail to see the beauty of Lord Tu. If you can’t see his beauty, you simply haven’t eyes. “Hence it is said: All tongues savor the same flavors, all ears hear the same music, and all eyes see the same beauty. Why should the heart alone not be alike in us all? But what is it about our hearts that is alike? Isn’t it what we call reason and Duty? The sage is just the first to discover what is common to our hearts. Hence, reason and Duty please our hearts just like meat pleases our tongues.

Lammas, or Teltane, is a cross-quarter day midway between summer solstice and fall equinox.

The days are growing ever longer in June, and the Medicine Wheel of the seasons will open fully to the South on the summer solstice, June 21.

There is every indication that the ancient Egyptians wanted to draw our attention to the Sphinx. They wanted us to understand that it is an astronomical clock whose dial was the four steady reference points, the Four Guardians. The Four Guardians, or as they came to be known in the Christian Era of Pisces, was also called the Four Royal Stars, or the Archangel Stars. ❖ Michael - Aldebaran – the guardian of the eastern sky as it predates the vernal equinox. ❖ Raphael - Regulus (in Leo) – the guardian of the northern sky, as it pre-announces the summer solstice. ❖ Uriel - Antares (in Scorpio) – the guardian of the western sky, as it predates the autumn equinox ❖ Gabriel - Fomalhaut – the guardian of the southern sky, as it pre-announces the winter solstice.

Pole, his right foot to the (unseen) South Pole. leaving his third step to fall on the head of Bali (in this version, Orion). Here Vamana would have arrived at Bali’s sacrifice on the winter solstice, when the sun is a “dwarf” because he cannot stretch his feet (rays) all the way to the North Pole. The three steps could also apply to the system of reckoning which takes one human year to equal one day and night of the devas. When during this period the Sun moves from the vernal equinox to the autumnal equinox (during which time it appears above the celestial equator in the sky), it is day for the devas and night for the asuras, and when the Sun moves from the autumnal equinox to the vernal equinox (during which time it appears below the celestial equator in the sky), it becomes night tor the devas and day for the asuras. While the asuras rule during their day the devas are discomfited, but with the coming of the vernal equinox (sunrise on the day of the devas) the order of the universe is renewed through noon (the summer solstice) until sunset (the autumnal equinox), after which the asuras again get their chance to play about. Bali

] The real trouble is not the mere difference of opinion, as between one scholar and another, but the fact that Graves (like myself) refuses to treat his subject as dead. A scholar only feels secure if he is sure that the subject of his study is not one day going to get up and look him between the eyes; and nothing could be in worse taste than a suggestion that anything more is required of him than a chaste rational disinterestedness. Both the Buddha and the White Goddess, it is felt, have been safely dead these two thousand years and more, and the professors of these subjects congratulate themselves on having chosen such admirably extinct fields of study. (Quite the last thing that a professor of Buddhism would dream of doing is to profess Buddhism—that is left to mere amateurs like myself.) But what happens? Here comes Graves and myself shouting out one, that you cannot know the Goddess unless you worship her—and in the flesh, to boot (or, should I say, to buskin?)—, and, the other, that you cannot understand the Buddha unless you practise his teaching—in the jungle, preferably, and barefoot. If I have my way, these comfortable scholars will have to exchange the fleshpots of Oxford for the almsbowl of India; and if Graves has his, their dutiful wives will become Bassarids, dancing naked with Dionysian fury on Boar's Hill, and tearing the Vice-Chancellor to pieces and devouring him raw at the summer solstice. And that would never do, would it?

The Atenians' heritage shifted away from the Osirian Passover onto the other Holdover which marks the Summer Solstice as we see and witness in the Stonehenge site.

The New Passover (aka Ascension) hence became associated with the Northeast where the Stonehenge Avenue is aligned with the sunrise of the summer solstice.

John Michell's work confirms my discovery where he recognizes the "New Jerusalem" to have been the model after which Stonehenge was built. However, he didn't realize that this site and model were theologically established according to the New Passover which takes place in the Summer Solstice in contrast to the Old Passover which were in the Winter Solstice.

Summer Solstice June 20th–23rd (Northern Hemisphere); December 20th–23rd (Southern Hemisphere) A time of power when the sun is at its height and all life swells as plans come to fruition.

Winter Solstice December 20th–23rd (Northern Hemisphere); June 20th–23rd (Southern Hemisphere) A time of deep rest and renewal, while nature dreams within the womb of the earth, and the sun is reborn, giving us more hours of light each day.

Allow the sun’s energy to illuminate your being by taking some time to really appreciate all that is positive and joyful in your life right now. Becoming aware that this time too will pass reminds us of the importance of stopping now and then simply to enjoy the good things that we have created in our lives.

In certain latitudes there comes a span of time approaching and following the summer solstice, some weeks in all, when the twilights turn long and blue. This period of the blue nights does not occur in subtropical California, where I lived for much of the time I will be talking about here and where the end of daylight is fast and lost in the blaze of the dropping sun, but it does occur in New York, where I now live. You notice it first as April ends and May begins, a change in the season, not exactly a warming—in fact not at all a warming—yet suddenly summer seems near, a possibility, even a promise. You pass a window, you walk to Central Park, you find yourself swimming in the color blue: the actual light is blue, and over the course of an hour or so this blue deepens, becomes more intense even as it darkens and fades

The Maori mythology of the Haka is ancient Egyptian in origin for that it refers to the Sun god having two wives; the Summer and the Winter maids who obviously act as embodiments of the Solstices. And since the pivotal point in front of the Balance of Giza (i.e. The eastern alignment of Khafre's Pyramid) resembles this dance of war, the crucial movement of the Sun is from the Winter Solstice event upwards to that of the Summer's exactly as the chant's lyrics state and as the circular zodiac of Dendera shows.

Samhain – End of Summer Imbolc – Sundown February 1st through the day February 2nd Beltane – Either April 30th or May 1st Lughnasadh – July 31st to August 1st Yule – Winter Solstice in Northern Hemisphere, Summer Solstice in Southern Hemisphere Ostara – March 21st Litha – June 21st Mabon – September 21st

Squaring the Circle (possibly enacted by Khufu's Solar Barque) associates the Eastern & Western sides of the Great Pyramid's base with the Winter & Summer Solstices, and the Northern & Southern ones with the Vernal & Autumnal Equinoxes consecutively. This is evident by realizing that it takes a period of 3 months for moving from one phase into another as expressed in the pyramid's structure where its RC side equals to three multiples of its metric height; or better presented through its perimeter which equals to the circumference of a circle with its height as a radius thereof.

Soon I will see the longest day of the year. Summer solstice, the humans call it. My final summer solstice.