Summer Solstice

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Deborah O'Connor is a gifted astrologer and, on the near eve of my birthday, I find her latest message especially insightful and wise. I hope you do, as well. The photo of the Indian Paintbrush I took on the edge of the canyon near our mountain home several years ago. I have always cherished my June birthdays, and this one seems even more impactful.

Midsummer is a poignant time. Light itself moves through us and into our world with more intensity than any other day of the year.

On this bright and light-filled day, we recognize that, like the sun that has been expanding itself more and more and more for six months now, we have been working—body and soul—to energize our lives. But today is a turning point, literally. 

Summer Solstice begins when the Sun moves into heart-aware Cancer. This is a day when Time itself pauses to see the way forward. Since the sun began to gain light and strength at Winter Solstice six months ago, we've driven ourselves as we felt its energy filling more and more space in us. But today we get to stop long enough to create a little ritual in honor of the courage and tenacity and strength it’s taken to get this far. 

If you are so inclined, you might find yourself with friends, feasting, dancing, singing to the sky. And if you are more solitary, you may wander into a wild space with every sense inviting the fragrance of the wild rose, listening for the songs of the warblers and the loons, feet deep in cool water.

However you choose to celebrate Midsummer—with your head tipped back to the sky in laughter and song, or with a single candle lit in gratitude for the Beloved—it is your (Cancer) heart that hopes to be in the lead now. It is your sense of inner knowing that will be your best compass, nourishing you on love—for yourself and for all that is.

May all being know peace and be filled to overflowing with light.

Deborah 

Learn more about Deborah O'Connor and her gifted work as an astrologer. www.lovedogdesign.com

An advisor for the Rocky Mountain Land Library and member of the International League of Conservation Writers, Page Lambert has been writing about the western landscape and leading nature retreats in the West for twenty years. Founding member of Women Writing the West, member of Wyoming Writers and Colorado Authors’ League, Lambert’s writing can be found inside monumental sculptures at the Denver Art Museum, online at Huffington Post, and inside the pages of dozens of anthologies. Page designs and teaches graduate writing courses for the University of Denver’s University College. Recent published works include “Not for Sale” (Langscape Magazine and “The Rural West,” included in Fulcrum’s new book, The Light Shines from the West. Forthcoming are 3 poems in DoveTails: Writing for Peace. Page writes All Things Literary/All Things Natural from her mountain home west of Denver.

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