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Summer Solstice Ritual

Summer Solstice 2009

Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and relax.
At this time of greatest light, we meditate on light as a symbol of spiritual energy. Breathe now gently and deeply and with each breath become aware of the light that surrounds you and the light that is within you -- the light that is the energy of Our Great Father.
The light can be any color. It is often imagined as white -- like bright sunlight. But it can be any color, any intensity that is best for you. Blue, green, yellow, purple, rose; we know that light can also be black. The light may stay the same color for you during this meditation or it may change from color to color, or become a blend of many colors.
See the light now in your mind's eye. This light is all around us, we are bathed in its brightness, energy, and warmth. (Pause)
Focus on the light until you sense that you and the light are one. This will be your signal that you can now bring the light inside you. (Pause)
When you bring the light inside you, one way is to let it stream in through your crown chakra at the top of your head. (If it's already entered another way, that's okay.)
The light -- this healing energy -- flows through you now, from your crown, down to your third eye (between your eyebrows) to your throat, your shoulders and your arms, and your hands, to your heart, your stomach, shining brightly at your solar plexus just above your navel, to your sex organs, shining too at your tailbone. The healing light travels down through your legs, your knees, your ankles and your feet. Feel the warmth of this healing energy now as it travels all through your body. (Pause)
Now sense the one part of your body where the light can shine the brightest and imagine the light there. See it shine. (Pause)
Now send the light out from that part of your body where it shines the brightest. Send it out a few inches from your body. (Pause)
Now extend your light out from your body just a little more, then a little more, until your light extends a few feet from your body. Now, if you like, extend your light to reach everyone here. Our lights meet and we are connected by this great light, connected by our renewed knowledge of Our Great Father. Take a few minutes now to sense this energy and this connectedness. (Pause)
Now take from this light the energy that you need, and know that there is plenty for all. For the Source of this light is endless and ever abundant. Take a moment to experience His abundance, and know that as you partake of His light and His love, so do you give your light and your love. And as you give energy, so do you receive it. And thus does the circle of life continue. (Pause)
And as we come back now to this time and place, let us give thanks for the return of Our Great Father, and for our return unto Him.

I greet you in the name of the Green Man, Lord of the Forest. Solstice is a particularly masculine ritual and we use this opportunity to acknowledge and access the male side of Divinity.

With the Sun’s healing energy, we cleanse this space and ourselves to prepare for our encounter with the Divine. We cast away all negativity and open ourselves to the gifts of the God.

With the Sun’s holy light, we consecrate this space and honor the sacredness of all. We rejoice in the miracle of mere existence.

From my heart to your heart, we cast the circle.

Welcome O East and my Lord Shiva, creator god. We ask you to stand as watchman for our ritual, to share your strengths and powers with us, your children. Hail and welcome!

Welcome O south and my Lord Ra, Father of us all. We ask you to stand as watchman for our ritual, to share your creativity with us, your children. Hail and welcome!

Welcome O West and my Lord Zeus, mighty king. We ask you to stand as watchman for our ritual, to share your wisdom with us, your children. Hail and welcome!

Welcome O North and my Lord Odin, great warrior. We ask you to stand as watchman for our ritual, to share your determination and knowledge with us, your children. Hail and welcome!

The circle is cast and well guarded. We are once more between worlds, where life and death, joy and sorrow, beginning and end all meet as one.

We welcome the Goddess, the Bride of the God. She is the nurturing feeling intuitive aspect of the Divine and is both complimented and completed by the God. We open ourselves to Her gifts and honor Her presence with us today. Hail and welcome!

We welcome the God, the Groom of the Goddess. He is the logical wise warrior aspect of the Divine and is both complimented and completed by the Goddess. We open ourselves to His gifts and honor His presence with us today. Hail and welcome!

We gather today to mark the longest day and we are reminded that this Sabbat is associated particularly with the God. Pagans spend a lot of time doing Goddess worship and sometimes it seems like we don’t even notice that there’s a whole other side to the Divine. So it’s good to remind ourselves that we are able to access and emulate BOTH genders, avail ourselves of whatever power or characteristic we need, regardless of which sex we are.

Even within various pantheons, the archetypes for various attributes are pretty evenly shared by both male and female aspect. There are creator gods and there are warrior goddesses; no one behavior is limited to a specific gender. This is an important point to remember: you should call upon that aspect of the Divine which has the strongest resonance for you at that time. The choice should be made based on which pantheon you are familiar with, which aspect of the Divine seems most compatible with your purpose, and being comfortable with the images that particular aspect brings to your mind.

Each gender can probably identify more easily with the aspect of the Divine that is the same gender simply because we are the most familiar with the characteristics we ourselves have. It can be worth the effort to work with the opposite gendered aspect of the Divine on a regular basis in order to learn more about ourselves in the process. We are not any of us 100% female or 100% male—and I mean this in the mental and spiritual sides of our being more than the physical. But even in the physical portion, there’s a great deal of overlap in common body parts… remove the sex organs and there’s minimal difference between man and woman. Transsexual operations require a certain amount of intricacy, but really—if we were that different, turning one sex into the other would not be possible at all.

Sometimes that familiarity actually impedes our energy work. We’re so comfortable with, so used to having that same sex association that we do not give it the attention it needs or deserves. So purposefully choosing an opposite aspect to work with serves as a focusing lens on the magick we are doing. Choosing to align ourselves with the opposite gender in our Craft work can lead to all sorts of revelations. Consider that it will probably open up a whole side of ourselves that we have but yet seldom explore. We are so much more than our sexual identity and yet so often we are limited, either by our own fears or by other’s concepts of acceptable behavior that we don’t use our full potential.
Women do not have some special mothering ability to nurture. Men can be just as nurturing, just as warm and tender—but our society does not encourage them to allow that side to be seen. Men don’t have the monopoly on anger or aggression, but women are very seldom taught how to be appropriately angry or how to express it without having it tied to their physical cycle. Emotions have no gender. Your feelings are not male or female. Let me say that again: emotions are not categorized by your sexual identity. We all are capable of every single emotion.

With the marvels of science now available to us, there is nothing that a man can do that a woman cannot, and vice versa. The only thing that one gender can do that the other cannot (and that’s at this time in history) is to bear children. And quite frankly, while it’s a miraculous thing, bearing children is not particularly a notable defining characteristic. Any female cat can do it. It should not be the first or the only thing someone says about you and what kind of person you are.

In fact, there shouldn’t be any single characteristic that would sum up the total of who you are. We are part of the Divine and we can’t adequately describe Him/Her/It. Words are insufficient to explain the unknowable and we are a child of that unknowable, living our physical lives towards becoming that unknowable again. This means that the gender of our concepts of the Divine is really immaterial and completely irrelevant to our worship as well as to our cooperative efforts, such as energy work. It’s much less about who has what plumbing than it is about what resonates for you, gives you the best results because it “feels right”.

Focusing on one aspect of anything means that you lose sight of the bigger picture. It can be worthwhile to take a close look at that one spot, but it should never be mistaken for being the entirety of the object being examined. Limiting oneself to only one aspect of the Divine is also a mistake. Limiting it to only one gender is foolish beyond words—and I don’t just mean limiting it to a male figure. There are those who only identify the Divine as female; a natural enough reaction to a life time of masculine religious domination but just as wrong as any fundamentalist who denies female Divine power. It is a form of arrogance, this restricting and the limiting of the limitless. Arrogance is a way of “knowing” and once you *know*, you stop learning, you stop being open to newness.

So on this Summer Solstice, in the full light of the longest day, open yourself to welcoming all the forms of Divinity, any aspect that will appear to you. Each face that the Divine wears has a lesson to teach, wisdom to impart. If you are female, willing seek out the male power that is available to you from the Divine. If you are male, eagerly grasp the female power that is yours from the Divine. Your gender is a defining characteristic, but not a limit unless you choose to make it so. There is abundance, more than you can imagine, that is yours for the taking. Open your hands; open your hearts; open your minds and receive the gifts of the Divine.

Discussion

Cakes and Ale

I offer you the abundance of the Mother. May you never hunger.

I offer you the abundance of the Father. May you never thirst.

We have shared time in this sacred space; we have shared our thoughts and feelings. We have given worth to the Divine and thanks for the abundance we have been blessed with. Now we prepare to go out into the world once more.

Lord and Lady, Mother and Father, God and Goddess: there are millions of names for You in all of Your forms and not one of them is accurate. We honor You, we thank You for all that we have, all that we are and all that we can be. We have welcomed You into our circle and we thank You for being with us. Go if You must, stay if You will. Hail and Farewell!

We thank you, O North and my Lord Odin for Your presence with us today. We open ourselves to the lessons of perseverance and the wisdom of the Hanged Man. Go if You must, stay if You will. Hail and Farewell!

We thank you, O West and my Lord Zeus for Your presence with us today. We open ourselves to the lessons of leadership and the wisdom of the Emperor. Hail and Farewell!

We thank you, O south and my Lord Ra for Your presence with us today. We open ourselves to the lessons of creativity and the wisdom of the Magician. Hail and Farewell!

We thank you, O East and my Lord Shiva for Your presence with us today. We open ourselves to the lessons of change and the wisdom of the Fool. Hail and Farewell!

The circle is open but unbroken
May the peace of the Goddess be forever in your heart
Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again.