At the Gaian Equinox Festival in March 2024, we gathered to honor the element of Air and the creativity that can come from our relationship to wind, to sylphs, to inspirations within. We had so much fun being creative and sharing our creations together during our festival time online that we decided to continue our celebration in the same way at our Solstice gathering on June 2lst, by honoring the “Fires of Creativity” together.
Solstice celebrations invoke the element of Fire so naturally. In June, in the Northern Hemisphere, we honor the Sun Fire at its highest and greatest expression of Light at Summer Solstice. We build bonfires outside and bask in the warmth and levity of long hot summer days, blossoms and fruit, the abundance of life. In the Southern Hemisphere we honor the Sun Fire within, burning at the heart of the close and holy darkness of Winter Solstice time. We build fires in our woodstoves and hearths and bask in the warmth of family and friends gathering together, short days, stars bright in the long cold nights of rest and renewal.
It will be a joy to see how our Fires of Creativity will manifest on June 21st, weaving Summer and Winter Solstice expressions together in Gaian Wholeness. Come prepared with art supplies, musical instruments, your voice, your pen, your stories and songs. Come prepared to invoke the Sidhe, our cousins in festival fun, the Fire elementals–the Salamanders, and beings of nature–seen and unseen, who help bring warmth, light and transformation to our lives at Solstice time.
I include here a taste of creative projects for the Summer Solstice–activities I have done with children and families in my community over the years.
Celebrate the Sun as much as possible. Go to the beach, be in the sun in the garden, feel the warmth of the sun on bare skin and bodies. Tell stories about the sun. Sing sun songs. Make a sun cake out of golden corn meal and calendula petals for rays. Get golden things: glitter, gold paper, gold crowns to be Sun Kings and Queens. Wear fiery colored clothes in reds, oranges and golds to honor the Sun.
Cut spirals out of thick gold paper and let them hang in branches of trees to dance in the wind and the sun. The way the spirals turn mimics the way the energy is spiraling up out of the earth at Summer Solstice time. These are very magical.
Spend a lot of time with the faeries. Go to special places on Midsummer or Solstice Eve. Read tales of faery, and faery poetry. Make faery houses out of sticks and moss and stones. Leave food and drink out for the faeries on Midsummer’s Eve, milk and honey, and lovely treats.
Sing songs about faeries, make up dances for the Four Kingdoms. How would a gnome tromp? A watery undine slip and slide? How would a sylph flitter and fly? A fire salamander flicker and flame? Let your imagination soar.
For those in the Southern hemisphere, I include a glimpse of the star festival of Matariki, (the Māori name for the Pleiades star cluster) celebrated near the Winter Solstice. Matariki honors the time when the Pleiades are visible once again in the night sky, and is, in its own way, a Fire festival, celebrating the importance of Star Fire in our lives. The festival is being honored once again in New Zealand as a vital cultural treasure and important threshold in the earth’s year. Matariki was made an official public holiday in 2009, which is a beautiful tribute to the Maori people of that land.
Here's a taste of creative projects for Matariki: Ara Swanney from New Zealand will be sharing more with us in our festival time. These projects reflect the traditional ways that the Maori people celebrated Matariki.
Go out and view the stars and celebrate the return of the Pleiades in the night sky.
Make an offering of food to the stars.
Do divinations with the stars. When Matariki reappeared, Māori would look to its stars for a forecast of the coming season's prosperity: if they shone clear and bright, the remaining winter would be warm, but hazy or twinkling stars predicted bad weather in the season ahead.
Honor loved ones who have died in the past year. After the forecasts for the year were read from the stars, the deceased were invoked with tears and song in a ceremony called te taki mōteatea ("the reciting of laments"). On the rising of Matariki at the start of the year, the deceased of the past year were carried up from the underworld and cast up into the night sky to become stars, accompanied by prayers and the recitation of their names.
String garlands of stars in the trees as a festival of returning Light.
We look forward to celebrating our Fires of Creativity together. Please join us:
Solstice Gaian Festival
Northern Hemisphere Friday June 21st, 1 pm Pacific Standard Time
Southern Hemisphere Saturday June 22nd, Varying times depending on where you are
If you're not a member of the Gaian Commons Community, email Freya Secrest for the link to join us.
Blessings,
The Festival Team
Freya Secrest, Lucinda Herring, Linda Engel and Ara Swanney