LITHA

(June 20-24)

Litha, also known as Midsummer, celebrates the Goddess, now heavy with child, as nature carries the bounty of the coming harvest. The sun is at it's strongest, the longest day of the year. The first day of summer is a time to get out and enjoy yourself with others. Seeds have been planted, and you are tending your garden, but also there is a break in the gardening as things have taken root. The harvest has not yet begun.

Midsummer is the time when all is flourishing. Flowers smell their sweetest, trees are their greenest, faeries are their most playful, and it is the time that nature's lavishness is most acutely perceived. The passion at Midsummer has escalated from the playfulness of Beltane to a more fervent intensity. Couples who handfasted the year before at Beltane, tend to marry in a more formal handfasting at Midsummer.

This season is the perfect time to understand our passions, for they are ever so evident in the height of the summer heat. It is through understanding and acknowledging our deep passions that we can utilize them correctly. For passion will take us to heights unseen, fuel our creativity, and bring us into realms unrealized in the logical mind. Through this we can see the bounty of life, the intensity of being, the rapture of love, the exhilaration of awareness, and the possibilities of creation. For it is passion and love that have driven humankind to realize some of its greatest treasures and its most extreme violations. It is only through awareness and conscious action that passion can bring us to the peak of existence. This is the time to experience our passions and the force within, to be conscious of how we use them and the gifts they can bring and experience true power.
(This material adapted from the Salem Tarot Page.)

This sabbat is also referred to by other names: the Summer Solstice, Sun Blessing, Alban Hefin, and Feill-Sheathain, and exact celebration dates vary due to the differences between the actual astronomical event and our calendar.

SPELLWORK:
Healing, Love Magic, and Purification

HERBS:
Birch, Fennel, St. John's Wort, white Lilies, Rue, Roses, Verbena, Oak, Saffron, Ylang-ylang, Chamomile, Elder, Hemp, Lavender, Mugwort, and Lemon Thyme

FOODS:
Fresh vegetables, Squash, Lemons, Oranges, Pumpernickel bread, Ale and Mead

COLORS:
Yellow, Green, Blue and Gold

STONES:
Emerald, Diamond, Jade, and Tiger's Eye

Traditional activities during Midsummer include picking and drying magical herbs, and communing with nature. Altar decorations are summer herbs/flowers, greenery, love amulets, seashells, potpourri, and summer fruits.

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