A Simple Solstice

My Corner Of Our Garden

Summer Solstice and Litha blessings to you all!

I hope you  all managed to welcome the sun this morning in your own particular way. I had been hoping to do something different to celebrate this year, something unusual to write about, you know something a bit well, snazzy! You'd think I'd have started to learn how this works by now wouldn't you? Well it's been a really hectic couple of weeks at work, so time, energy and inspiration have all been having a bit of a battering, coupled with a poorly and expensive car and trying to save some money for our holiday in a couple of weeks as well as today being Father's Day meant that there really wasn't much chance of doing something all

Stonehenge - Solstice 2013

singing and dancing (ok well maybe not too much of that) to celebrate the sunrise this morning. I'd hoped to get to Folkstone to watch the sunrise with the lovely Pagan circle there by the sea, but an hours journey each way and the additional petrol weren't really conducive to either my bank balance or my family commitments for the day. I went to Stonehenge for the Solstice a couple of years ago with my Mark,one of my best friends and her partner - Oh and 21,000 other people. It was crazy. To be honest it was more like a massive rave, we were stepping over drugged and drunk people and it was absolutely heaving. Not much spirituality to be seen, it must have been hiding with the sun behind the heavy clouds. I hear it was a fantastic sunrise last year and this year!

Goddess Chakra Prayer Bunting

So, having determined to make the best of the situation, I decided to simply celebrate the Summer Solstice in my own back garden in my special corner that I have been slowly putting together. As I mentioned last week I have been interested in and working with my Chakras lately, particularly the Celtic system. Inspired by Buddhist prayer flags that seemed to have popped up a lot recently too, I decided to fashion my own 'Goddess Chakra Prayer Bunting' to adorn my "Goddess Corner" and celebrate Summer Solstice 2015! Sewing machine and pinking shears at the ready, after a few quiet moments of contemplation and prayers asking Ker for some inspiration, I sat down and

Each contains a hidden prayer

created my lovely bunting. One flag for each chakra colour and in the hem where it attaches to the tape I have hidden and sewn in a prayer to Goddess on a tiny  piece of paper. Each one relates to the chakra colour and also to Goddess, so for example on one of the blue throat pennants I  wrote " I pray to always know my truth and share it" and on one of the purple crown pennants I wrote "I pray to be at one with myself, with Goddess and with Nature" - you get the idea! Eventually as the elements work with the paper and the fabric it will all become one and the pennants will fray and tatter like offerings on a cloutie tree.

Solitary Solstice Selfie!

So 4.15 this morning after being woken by my alarm clock from a deep sleep, crawling out of bed and questioning my sanity and getting myself a cuppa, I made myself comfy on a blanket in my Goddess corner, complete with altar under a cloudy sky, alone apart from the occasional tweet from an optimistic bird. 
It was bliss! A stillness of sound, sight and motion that is only possible at that time of the morning, before the world wakes up, I knew the clouds wouldn't clear and there was very little chance I would see any sunrise at all but it didn't matter - I was out there enjoying that very moment. Candles and incense lit, I awaited the sunrise, still hopefully

All ready for Sunrise....

planning a mediation journey in the first rays of the Solstice Sun.......             
I knew when the sunrise was due 4.42 and i would have missed it had an amazing thing not happened, not as I might have wished that the clouds suddenly vanished and the sun burst through with it's warming rays - the birds went nuts, and I mean NUTS! From the occasional cheap and tweet they went full blast into an amazing dawn chorus heralding the wonder that I couldn't seem but was happening anyway, like it does every morning. 
Needless to say my planned mediation journey wasn't happening any time soon, I did try - I started by grounding myself and 'tried' to mediate and journey to Goddess, but mercifully I soon got lost in the bird song and just being. I was alone with Goddess and nature. It wasn't until I started feeling a little chilled and checked the time I realised that I had been sitting out there just listening and breathing for nearly half an hour - one small prayer had already been granted.

Not the World's Brightest Cat

Dear old Spock (yes, he's named after the Star Trek character) who really isn't the sharpest tool in the box wanted to help with this afternoons Fathers Day BBQ, luckily we shooed him out before sparking the coals into life! After  my lack of available sunrise photography this morning I thought I could get a picture of the sunset tonight for the blog, usually we get a really good view to the west. As it happened, at sunset I was just driving back from dropping my Father in Law and Brother in Law home after a few ciders and wines and didn't have my camera with me. Of course, it was utterly spectacular!!  A sky of swirling feather like clouds illuminated pink, red and almost violet - what a blog finale that would have been! I knew it would be gone before I got home - it doesn't matter though, I saw it and I saw Her beauty as must have done many other people. A timely reminder  that it's not what we say we do or see or hear, it's what we feel, how we live and what we practice that fills our hearts and minds.

Have  a Blessed and Amazing Week x x x

My Litha Altar -  Decorated with
Shells and Blue Glass Pebbles

Solstice Present - a  Candle Holder from my
 Lovely Friend Tracie who thinks I'm Nuts
but Loves me Anyway!