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Whose warm love flows across the land each day

Stirring Life, the world’s magic, arms yearning up,

In other years I’ve been sunburned at Beltain. I’ve been overwhelmed by the heat and had to hide in the shade of the trees. I’ve had to worry about not de-hydrating during rituals. It’s a festival whose traditions include young couples going off into the woods at night.

I’m writing this blog post while wearing a winter jumper, the windows are shut because it’s too cold to have them open. Right now, there is sun outside, but most of the day has been cold and wet. May the first was cold and wet, at the end of a cold, late spring and a winter that seemed to go on forever. It’s years like this when you can start to see why our ancestors might have felt the need to do dramatic things to persuade the sun to come back.

On Equinox morning, the light of the rising Sun streams in a golden torrent down the hall.

I stand in worship, bathed in light.

Before such savage beauty, I bow and kiss the ground.

I rise and kiss my hand, adoring.

Will scientists soon learn the nature of dark matter? How did one of Saturn's moons come to be? And is a future of cybernetic limbs ahead for us or not? It's Earthy Thursday, our segment about news relating to science and the Earth. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Sunshine

I think sometimes as a witch the moon tends to get pride of place and the sun perhaps takes a back seat?  But it is an incredibly powerful source of natural energy and magic.

I’ve repeatedly run into wheel of the year narratives that encourage us to align our lives with the sun’s cycle. This, we are told, is more natural. We should dream and hibernate in the depths of winter, plant the seeds for our projects in the spring, watch them grow through the summer and take our harvest in the autumn. Never mind that many projects are not shaped like growing grain in the first place.

What do you do if the winter is a depressing time? What do you do if you need the warmth and comfort of sunny days to do your dreaming and planning? What do you do if you work best in the winter, locked away from the world? If your nature doesn’t align you to the solar wheel, how can forcing yourself to fit with it be natural?

Summer is now in full swing! Today is the Summer Solstice, also known as Litha in Old English or Midsummer, is a festival celebrated as either the beginning or midpoint of summer in many cultures throughout Europe, with parallels across the world in other locations as well. It’s opposite is of course Midwinter, which is celebrated at the same time on the other side of the world.

As always we’ve gathered all of our related posts as well as those we found across the internet that we thought you might enjoy . We hope you have a great time this summer!

-Aryós Héngwis