Happy Summer Solstice, tomorrow for many of us! Due to the weirdness of our time zones and spherical Earth, we can watch the Summer Solstice sunrise over Stonehenge late tonight on the evening of the Summer Solstice!  What?  How?  Because when the Sun rises on the day of the Solstice (when the Earth’s axis exactly points the most toward the Sun in the Northern Hemisphere or the most away from the Sun in the Southern Hemisphere) at 4:51 am at Stonehenge, it will be the night of June 20th in the United States (11:51 pm) and will already be the evening of June 21st in Australia! Coverage at that site goes from 11:00 pm EDT to 1:00 am.  Or does the Sunset before the Solstice move you spiritually?  If so, you can catch the Solstice Sunset livestream from Stonehenge, with coverage from 3:30 – 5:30 pm EDT *today*. (Also, it is Winter Solstice/Yule for those in the Southern Hemisphere).

And why the mammoth picture??  Found on the Summer Solstice last year, Nun cho ga speaks to both the Summer Solstice, and being an animal well evolved for cold weather, invokes the Winter Solstice of the Southern Hemisphere too!  More details are here.

The previous post listed many online celebrations, and some in person events are likely near you as well.

Celebrations

The ways that many of us are celebrating were published recently.  Some of us may be lucky enough to be celebrating at Stonehenge today, but for those who are not, remember that there are at least hundreds of other stone circles in Europe, and many others on every continent (except Antarctica, of course).   That includes the United States, where they are often known as Medicine Wheels – as well as many recently made circles, like the small stone circle we made in the woods behind our house.  Just a few years ago, I held my Summer Solstice ritual next to the ancient earth circle in central Indiana (which has a Summer Solstice notch).  Three years ago, I made a spiritual pilgrimage to Stonehenge.  Though it was not on the Summer Solstice itself, it was just a couple weeks after the Solstice, and I was deeply moved by watching the Sun rise over the heelstone.

In whatever way you are celebrating, Happy Summer Solstice!

This is an updated version of our annual Summer Solstice post.