Coming toward the Solstice - The Wheel and the Magic

In four sleeps time - for me here in Turtle Island - it will be the Summer Solstice. This refers to the longest day and the shortest night, the sun seems to ‘stand still’ at their zenith and the whole year hangs suspended. This is true of the winter solstice as well, which will be happening in my hemisphere of origin, the southern one.

There’s a lot of ancient and incredibly imperialist, colonialist, and racist roots to the idea that the ‘northern hemisphere’ is the anchor point for the whole planet, and I’d invite people to unhook from that for a moment and realise that where ever we are is holy and sacred and powerful. As well this I’d invite you to consider that the nearest magnetic pole is likely going to be the point to anchor by and that all kinds of stars guide us in this way. What we are calling “South” and “North” are in fact the same sacred direction, there are even maps that turn everything upside down (pretty much to confront western colonised mindsets, and maybe especially “GREAT BRITAIN” and “AMERICA”) and show the ‘bottom’ of the world map as the ‘top’. Anyway, the solstices are times to really consider the whole globe. Have fun with that flat-earthers. x

We have these solstices - and equinoxes - because of the tilt of Our Earth, and Our spiralling and dancing around our own axis and around the Sun. These Solstices and Equinoxes belong to no culture, to no era, and to no religion, they are the Holy Days of the Earth Herself.

And yet I am contemplating how this year and last year I did not experience a Winter Solstice. I was not in the southern hemisphere - or the northern hemisphere - at the time of the midwinter solstice. So what this means is that this is my fourth Summer Solstice in a row - December 2022 in the southern hemisphere, June 2023 in the northern hemisphere, December 2023 in the southern hemisphere, June 2024 in the northern hemisphere. And unless something changes I’ll be in the southern hemisphere for a fifth Summer Solstice. What’s a witch to do? Well, think about the Solstices a great deal. And also, contemplate and reflect on the nature and importance of “riding the wheel” that I participate in, as a witch.

There are many books and resources out there that will offer in illustrious and maybe even aggravating detail the context, origins, and etc. of what many contemporary witches and pagans in the Anglosphere (and similary influenced/colonised cultures) call the Year-Wheel or the Wheel of the Year. This blog-post is not that. All I know is that for nearly 25 years I have been consciously participating in it and it has meant different things at different times to me.

1) A way to connect to my Irish, Scottish, English, and Welsh ancestors and their cultures and folk ways.

2) A way to drop in deeply eight times a year and pay attention to what is happening around me, the interplay of light and darkness, cold and heat, humidity and dryness, moisture and wind; contraction, expansion, bird and animal life, insect life, plants and fungi, weather and whales…

3) A way to interact with specific mysteries connected to my home Craft tradition: Wildwood. I may also occasionally attend Reclaiming and Feri rituals for the Festivals, but my core experience of both those traditions which I am so deeply involved in do not hinge on a Witches’ Mythos of the Feasts.

All three of these reasons interlock for me when I mark the Great Feasts.

The Mysteries reveal themselves through the Doors or Gateways of the Feasts, is something some Wildwood witches might say.

What this brings me to is that I am fairly certain that in a few days when the Solstice happens I need to ensure that I fly to the Great Sabbat between the Worlds and allow myself to witness certain Mysteries so that I am not overflowing with Midsummer madness. The Midwinter mysteries are just as integral to the Year. They birth the Year in fact. The Midsummer mysteries are the peak of that Year and also present us a knife’s edge moment, but all of these moments are sacred and belong to one another. It is also true that in each Feasts are all the other Feasts, not just the one ‘across’ it on the Wheel.

At some point in my first 5 years of studying and practising the Craft I came across Raven Grimassi’s - of beloved and mighty memory - work and he articulated a teaching about the marking of the witch’s sabbats which has stuck with me. To paraphrase him, he passes on the teaching that a witch also marks the sabbats to renew their own power, to recharge with the stellar and telluric currents. Only this week was I watching a video of some infamous Romanian witches enacting a ritual - which apparently they do every week - to recharge their witch power with the stars, moon, sun, and earth. This is a pretty ancient idea. And it makes sense. I also experience the marking of the full moon that way. And that the dark moon presents an opportunity for witches to go within and to rest and recharge in the way.

So this Solstice I will be considering all of these things. I will be entering into three days of intensive pre-camp planning for California WitchCamp this week on the day of the solstice and I am sure we 8 witches will mark the Solstice together. Our common unity is that we are all Reclaiming witches, but we also happen to be initiated into Anderson Feri, Gardnerian Wicca, Druid Traditions, Ifa, Wildwood, Anderean Craft… so I am sure each of us will be singing a few different notes as we gather our attention and open to the Mysteries.

The Solstices also belong to us all. You don’t have to be a witch, or a Pagan, or an initiate of a tradition, to mark them and experience them.

We turn up to these Holy Earth Days together, in all our distinctions and connections.

x