Summer Solstice: Litha- The Longest Day

Summer Solstice celebrations have been taking place in most corners of the world since time immemorial.  One of the most well known places where the Solstices are marked, are the mysterious dolmens of Stonehenge.  Even though the jury is still out on the ultimate purpose of these enigmatic megaliths, we do know that the midsummer sun is aligned with the portal between the stones, and probably figured prominently in ancient pre-Celtic ritual to mark the height of summer.
  
This year, the 21st of June marks the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and an astronomical event that has been honored and celebrated by Pagan people for millennia. It is also the first day of summer, and the beginning of the cardinal sign, Cancer.  Litha, as it is known in many neo-pagan circles, is the day that the waxing sun reaches its zenith, and the God’s strength and fertility culminates in all of its joyful exuberance.

The Horned God from the Gunderstrup Cauldron

The God is honored on the Longest Day, and traditional festivities often center around acknowledgement of the energy of the Sun and of Fire, both symbols of positive masculine power.  The Celtic Pagan God is not merely one god, but a multi-faceted expression of many faces of the divine masculine.  His manifestations, like those of the Goddess are many,  and he is alternately and simultaneously known as the Green-man, Lord of the Wood; Cernunnos, The Great Stag; and the Lord of the Dance.  He is a god of wild joy; of full blooded lustiness, and the outward directed energy of burgeoning life.  The God can also experienced as wise councilor; the dimension of sacred masculine that sagely offers wisdom that is fair and noble in essence.  Conversely, the God has a fierce face and is known to take no prisoners when it comes to defending his people, his land, or that which he strongly believes in.  
 

Magical Oak Tree

On the Wheel of the Year, we are now at the opposite polarity of the Winter Solstice, the time of the Longest Night, and the rebirth of the Sun/God. He, and the sun, have grown steadily in power and strength to reach a culmination point, when the Sun/God are at the peak of their vitality, and everything in nature is verily bursting with life.  In the Celtic traditions, there is an old story about the Holly King and the Oak King that do battle for supremacy over the light and dark half of the year. At Winter Solstice, the strapping and handsome young Oak King overcomes the wise and venerable old Holly King, and reigns until Summer Solstice, when again they wrestle to see who will be the victor. Of course, we know that the Holly King will once again claim his crown, and even though we are at the beginning of summer, the nights will slowly but surely begin to grow longer after the culmination of the Oak King’s power at Summer Solstice.

As with the natural laws of nature, most Pagan paths support a worldview that recognizes the sacred balance that is inherent in all things, and thus, whatever else the God is, he is always the consort of the Goddess.  Paganism realizes that there is never a day without a night; an autumn without a spring; or god without goddess.  This is one of the great differences between earth based spirituality and paths which support a "Sky God" belief.  The god of the Christian/Judaic religions has no feminine counterpart, ultimately sustaining an unbalanced system.  For logically, how could there be male without female? The two are equal and necessary halves to wholeness;  Be they in a cosmological sense, or within one's own psyche.  

Summer Solstice is the time on the Wheel of the Year that  the Goddess and the God have both reached the fullness of their sexual maturity.  All of nature reflects this in a climax of life fulfilling its potential: everything is at its full flowering peak; a final thrust before the gradual drift into the long exhale that is the dark half of the year.