I had planned to go out and pick flowers, make myself a garland of them, make pancakes filled with jam and cottage cheese (mixed in a way that tastes like the feeling of cheesecakes), light candles, meditate and have a personal but full on celebration of Litha. Instead I stayed at home and sweated like a pig in this terrible heat, ordered a pizza and drank industrial amounts of coke. But what is Litha?
Litha is the celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Here in Budapest, for example, the sun is staring to set... at 9:30 pm. In some parts of the world, such as some parts of Sweden - for what I know - the sun doesn't seem to go down at all all day. In the new Pagan tradition the beauty of life and light and possibilities is celebrated. It also marks the day when the night, the cool and the darkness starts to regain it's turf and walks slowly towards reigning again the world.
Litha for me, applied to the daily life, makes me think about the height of our work. The efforts we have prepared for, the work we started has reached it's peak. It hasn't yielded fruits yet, but this is that moment, that passionful, precise moment when the work, your efforts seem to have taken life by their own, to be pushed by their own volition, and instead of being pulled and pushed by you, they nearly drag your with them. The elements of male and fire and light and day, among others, push the mind towards the thought of action, work that doesn't cease, that continues going on, untiring. It's a fabulous moment to celebrate those times when we have stayed away at school or college, studying for a test, or when we stayed at the office long past the last night janitor, when the city out there is dark and desolated, people in the neaby buildings are either sleeping or drinking themselves silly, and we are still there, with the tie loose, or our stockings removed and wrapped into a ball, somewhere deep in our bag, while our naked feet curls toes into the office carpet next to the high heels we've kicked off. Our fingers are glued to the keyboard while our eyes roam the text we are composing, and analize the charts and the tables to make sure the data in them are right. Litha celebrates the moment when not another coke can can be tossed into our waste baskets because they are full, even if we collapse the cans and cruch them as small as they can go.
Litha is our hair pinned up with pencils and pens, the tails of our shirt out of our pants or skirts. Litha is about not about dowing what's asked from us, but what we can do, go to our limits and give the best and the most of our effort to ensure a bountiful harvest.
Blessed Litha to you all.
2 comments:
I didn't really spend this day the way I planned to. I went to a cabaret instead, but it was cloudy anyway... However, if I could rearange the plants and the angle the earth cycles around the sun, I would make long days and short nights happen everyday. I love to wake up at 4:30 and to see the sunrise. I love to sit on my balcony having dinner at 9 watching the pale blue sky turn slightly violet. :D
We would be in conflict then! I would rather rearrange the world so that days were shorter, nights were longer, and heat never go past 28°C. Well, except in Costa Rica, where the night is the main turf of criminals. Okay, if I had that power I would eliminate crime and criminals, THEN make nights longer, particularly because of the sweet scented flowers that bloom and perfumate nights.
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