It looks like we are finally out of the pandemic!  Well, only mostly of course.  A new variant could arise, or a completely new virus.  But as the data above shows, numbers have stayed low, now that nearly everyone has some immunity (from the vaccines, from getting covid & recovering – many of whom now have long covid, or by being dead).  Plus, another metric to look at is the number of covid deaths per day or the number in ICUs with covid – both of which have been low for many months.

Now, being an anti-vaxxer is less of an immediate threat to one’s life (and those around you), and instead is becoming a lot like smoking – a low, but constant threat to one’s health as a result of poor decisionmaking.   The world is changed in many ways, including the rise of remote access and meetings (as shown by the online rituals I now post with every Sabbat-prep post, a practice that started during the pandemic).  Two years ago, I mistakenly thought that the pandemic was winding down.  I failed to realized that anti-science views were so strong in the United States that dozens of millions would avoid the life-saving vaccine, even when we have stockpiles (while poor countries go without), and I didn’t take the omicron mutation into account either.  I’ve marked the time two years ago on the graph above.

Well, I’m sure it’s not the last time I’ll be wrong.  The full damage done by the anti-science movement – both in the pandemic and on a wider scale – is too big to discuss here, but hopefully we can look at that, because it’s very important from a Naturalistic Pagan standpoint.

It’s great to see that online rituals are still going strong – in addition to the greatly increased numbers of in person rituals available to many of us.  Here are some online options:

The Summer Solstice is known in contemporary Neo-Paganism as Litha or Midsummer. Neo-Pagan religion often marks this as the moment the sun god meets his death, though sometimes that event is reserved for the cross-quarter in August or the autumnal equinox in September.  A bunch of ritual and celebration ideas can be found here, often with only a little editing needed to make them naturalistic (or don’t change anything, and see the gods as symbols).   Summer Solstice (date & time here) is also a great time for a Naturalistic Pagan Pilgrimage (after the pandemic is over, but you can start planning now).  Someday, I hope to hold a Summer Solstice ritual under the midnight Sun.  Maybe in one of these places.  Here are some more ideas for Summer Solstice pilgrimages.

For those of us in the United States, Juneteenth falls just a few days before the Summer Solstice every year.  It’s an important holiday from a Naturalistic Pagan perspective, underscoring the fact that our ownership of our bodies is an important part of our spirituality, and is very often targeted by theocracies, many controlling, toxic religions, and by authoritarians.

Also just in time for the Summer Solstice, the Noctilucent cloud season is starting!  Noctilucent clouds normally appear at high latitudes a little before Litha, and can be seen as the Earth itself preparing for the Summer Solstice, with the first wisps of summertime water vapor rising to the top of Earth’s atmosphere. Molecules of H₂O adhere to specks of meteor smoke, forming ice crystals 80 km above Earth’s surface.   When sunbeams hit those crystals, they glow electric-blue.   To see them yourself, look west 30 to 60 minutes after sunset when the sun has dipped below the horizon. If you see luminous blue-white tendrils spreading across the sky, you may have spotted a noctilucent cloud.

Our Sun gives us these wonders, and so much more.  Being our our ultimate source of both food and energy, Sun goddesses/gods are very common across cultures. Solarcentre published this poster of some of the main ones here.

Glenys Livingstone of PaGaian Cosmology writes:

“This is the time of Summer Solstice – the time when the light part of the day is longest. In our part of the world, light is in Her fullness. She spreads Her radiance, Her fruits ripen, Her greenery is everywhere, the cicadas sing. Yet as Light reaches Her peak, our closest contact with the Sun, She opens completely, and the seed of darkness is born.

“As it says in the tradition, this is the time of the rose, blossom and thorn, fragrance and blood. The story of Old tells that on this day Goddess and God embrace, in a love so complete, that all dissolves, into the single Song of ecstasy that moves the worlds. Our bliss, fully matured, given over, feeds the Universe and turns the wheel. We join the Beloved and Lover in the Great Give-Away of our Creativity, our Fullness of Being.”

To symbolize this, Livingstone distributes flowers, fruit, and the like to ritual participants, celebrating Earth’s abundance and generosity – Her Great Give-Away; then each participant gives one flower to the center fire, to represent their particular participation in this.

Bart Everson of A Celebration of Gaia observes how those in the United States have forgotten the meaning of the summer solstice:

“Sadly, most Americans are ignorant of this seasonal moment. We seem marginally more familiar with the winter solstice, probably because of the vast commercial pressures that have accreted aro

und that time in late December. Even so, most of us remain unaware that the winter solstice, our time of maximum tilt away from the sun, is the inverse, the opposite, the antithesis of the summer solstice. Six months removed from one another, we might regard these two celestial events as antipodes, points on opposite sides of a circle representing the cycle of the seasons.

The poetics of the winter solstice are perhaps slightly better understood in our popular culture: the birth of light in the depths of darkness. What, then, are the poetics of the summer solstice? If it is truly the inverse of the winter solstice, then it stands to reason that it must be the birth of dark at the peak of lightness, or the dying of the light at its very summit.

Perhaps this is why Americans have forgotten the summer solstice and the Midsummer holiday. We love summer, with its connotations of fun in the sun and trips to the beach. You’d think we’d be interested in celebrating this moment when the sun is at its zenith. But at this moment of the sun’s greatest power, it begins to decline, to wane, to die. There’s something subversive about recognizing this, something almost offensive to our national character. Our nation is caught up in a fantasy of endless growth and constant improvement. Acknowledging limits established by nature goes against our grain”

NaturalPantheist of the Nature is Sacred blog recites the following from ADF Solitary Druid Fellowship ritual on this day:

“As I stand here on this celebration of Litha, the sacred wheel of the year continues to turn. As my ancestors did in times before and my descendants may do in times to come, I honour the old ways. This is the time of the Summer Solstice, Alban Heruin, the Light of the Shore. On this longest day of the year, when the warm sun has reached its height and the world around me is abundant and green, it is time to honour great Sol as it shines down brightly upon the earth. In the midst of the warmth, light and beauty of the summer sun, it is a time to look forward and to anticipate the coming harvest as the days begin to shorten and we head once again towards winter. I give thanks for the blessings of the great star.”

Jon Cleland Host of the Naturalistic Paganism yahoo discussion group suggests kayaking local rivers or lakes, hiking in the woods, and holding a ritual in the forest. He also takes this as a time to celebrate marriage, as well as to consume mead:

“Mead is often consumed – celebrating the honey of our marriage and the season. Mead is honey wine, and the full moon closest to Litha is traditionally called the mead moon or the honey moon (hence the name “honeymoon” for the vacation after a wedding).”

Áine Órga of HeartStory.org writes how the summer solstice is a time for harnessing the energy of the season:

“I often conceive of life as being a wild and dangerous dance. It starts slow, speeds over time, careening wildly, until it gradually slows from exhaustion, and finally dies. This pattern is visible in human and animal life, but also in the changing seasons on Earth, and throughout Cosmos as stars and planets are born, collide, and die, only to be reborn again.

“The Summer Solstice is the peak of the dance. It is that time in your time, that moment on Earth, those millennia in the life of a star, when performance and creativity are at their most prolific. It is the time when dreams are manifested, art created, offspring born.

“Beyond it is the inevitable spiral back down. But right now is the time to dance.”

For those on the Southern side of our Earth, preparations for Yule/the Winter Solstice are underway as well…….

This is an  updated version of the yearly Summer Solstice post.  Feel free to share  your own naturalistic celebrations below.