Happy first day of summer and the longest day of the year!

Until recently, I hadn’t known about the practice of celebrating Litha during Midsummer. Litha is a pagan holiday, a time of light, purification, and healing; to reflect on the light and dark within us and the world.

It’s time to appreciate everything we have in our lives and to be grateful for nature and all that she provides.

Pick some flowers to honor the season or build a fire or light a candle. A fire lit on Litha is said to be very powerful and magical.

“Write down your hopes and dreams and burn them in the fire, to do this on Litha night will bring you your desire.”

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
– Mary Oliver