Thankful Abundance

Today in the Northern Hemisphere it is the Summer Solstice (if you are in the Southern Hemisphere you can read my Winter Solstice post here) the longest day when the sun is closest to us and at the height of its power.  This is a time for transformation and growth both for us and the natural world around us.  It always feels like a time of confliction for me, knowing that I and the world around me have lots of energy, that I feel the need to be outside and doing things all the time but in the background is the shortening of the days.  I am feeling the need to find peace with this to enable me to fully enjoy this time of year.

I am the Sun -

And I bear with all my might

The earth by day, and the earth by night.

I hold her fast, and my gifts bestow

To everything on her, so that it may grow:

Man and stone, flower and bee

All receive their light from me.

Open thy heart, dear child, to me,

That we together, one light may be.

C. Morgenstern

Over the past few months the earth has been waking up and putting on its wonderful display and abundance for us all to enjoy.  The seeds that have been dormant over the winter have swelled, ripened, and pushed up their green shoots through the good brown earth.  They have been assisted by the sun and the rain, warming the soil and enabling the seeds to unlock their potential.  You may also have planted your own seeds in the soil too, which have now become the hope of a harvest to come.  It never ceases to amaze me that we can sow our seeds, and in some cases they are so tiny, we water them, keep them warm and with time and care we can harvest and nourish our bodies with their produce.  We too sowed seeds way back at the time of Samhein which we have been thinking about and blossoming into a more focused plan in the time since then.  Now at this time of the height of our energies, our creativity is at its peak, this is the time to really work on them and make them happen.  

The warmth and the light makes spontaneity feel so much easier at this time of year, those ideas and plans that most probably come to you all through the year but you struggle with the energy to make them happen, now is the time take the opportunity to bring them into being.  Your energy is at its peak now, so now is the time to go with the flow and celebrate this part of ourselves.  If you don't feel comfortable doing things in this way maybe now is the time to give it a go?  Start with something small and see how that feels to you.  I do hope it feels right and more natural, it is not about loosing control, if that is important to you, it is more about living in the moment.  Something that can so often get lost in the busyness of life.  I don't know about you but I have found it so much easier to live more in the moment these past few months.

Everything feels so heightened and strong at this time of year, including our emotions.  Sometimes they can take us by surprise and blind side us with their intensity.  It is so important to find the time and a way to make peace with them, to let them go especially if you feel that they are holding you back, there are lots of ways that you can do this perhaps you could express them in a journal, speak them out loud or whatever you need to do to enable you to move on.  If it is your thing you could write on a piece of paper, I leave behind..... or drawing them if that works better for you and then put them into a fire to help with the symbolism of your leaving them behind to help you move on.

I have already mentioned the shortening of the days and what this means to me.  We know what the shortening days mean and what that brings with it!  I also know that we are living in very uncertain times at the moment and the future feels even more challenging than it usually does, the shortening days feels a bit too much on top of everything else.  We have been working up to this time since the Winter Solstice now we must continue the cycle back towards that time again, releasing on the way, our fears and worries over what that means.  I am going to work on embracing this, rather than wishing it were not to be.  I know that resisting this is not going to change anything and it is not a good use of my precious energy.

As we begin our journey back to the time of darkness, the shortest day, we can celebrate our achievements, share the knowledge and experiences that we have gained and continue to work on and with those seeds and plans that are important to us.  We can also slowly welcome the change in direction that the shortening days bring, not resisting it but trusting that we will be ok, we can embrace this slowness by letting it be and easing us into the time of renewal and rest, rather than it being the abrupt change that occurs when we are not in tune with the cycle of the seasons.

The sun god reaches the height of his power,

As all of the plants are now in flower,

The longest day brings us strength and vigour. 

As we pursue our aims and goals with rigour.

Love is fulfilled in the warmest of days,

Blessed by the fertilising Sun god's rays,

Summer fruits ripen and fill us with pleasure,

In carefree moments we will always treasure.

All of nature is filled with sweet bliss,

Fruitfulness blesses each honey soaked kiss

Now is the time of abundance and light,

We rejoice in days so happy and bright,

Knowing that we grow in wisdom and might

I hope you can find the time and energy, despite the uncertainty of these times, for those projects that you really want to work on.  I hope you can find a way to make peace with the shortening days and what that will bring to us in six months time.   Solstice blessings to you.

Midsummer

We joined together, last week, with friends to celebrate midsummer and the solstice.  We camped not far from where we all live at a campsite which had the perfect mix of space, woods and beaches.  The children were away playing with their friends for most of the day, only returning to the tent for food, clean clothes or sleep!  The weather forecast was mixed, with sun, rain and thunderstorms we had two very light showers and lots of sun and felt very blessed it definitely makes camping easier when it is dry.  Some of the children had been rehearsing a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the weeks leading up to camp, they performed this in the woods to a large audience and it was enchanting.  I had watched some of the rehearsals and thought them far from ready but they were.  We also had fires on the beach in the evenings, sang songs, had afternoon tea together, shared food in the evening, made streamers to run around with, had our own version of a sports day event with wacky races and had a throughly marvellous time.  We did not want to come home.

Our own preparations included making a flower wreath for my youngest, inspired by this lovely blog.  I too used craft wire which I wrapped with ribbon.  I drew some shapes on paper and then cut out the leaves and petals, we used 100% wool felt, and sewed them together with a few stitches in the centre, we added a button on and sewed the flower to the ribbon evenly spacing them.  My youngest has been asking to do some sewing for a while and this seemed like the perfect project for her to start with.  She sewed some of the flowers together and one of the buttons on.  It was lovely to sit together and complete this, we made the whole wreath in a couple of hours.  She wore the wreath, together with fairy  wings and dress for her role as a fairy in the play.

Joining in with Nicole for this weeks Keep Calm Craft On.

We have been mainly..........

celebrating with friends this week.

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for shopping and a visit to the library. We spent the rest of the day at home preparing for our camping trip, cooking food and getting stuff out of cupboards.

The next morning we woke to pouring rain, really really heavy rain, which stopped after an hour the sky cleared and the sun shone. We spent the morning at home finishing off cooking and packing up the car before setting off for our midsummer camp with friends. We had a wonderful few days which you can read about here.

We packed up from camp in the pouring rain on Thursday, it also felt really cool after the wonderful heat of the previous two days. It was still raining when we arrived home. I managed to get the car unpacked and most things put away before heading out to do a D of E (Duke of Edingburgh Award) assessment for a local Ranger Guide group. Before an expedition can go out they need to have their readiness for carrying out the expedition checked through talking to them about their kit, their route, their map skills, their awareness of risks, the country code and what to do if things go wrong. I qualified to do this last year and really enjoy meeting young people and supporting them to achieve this award. I was glad of my sleep that night!

On Friday we had friends over to play. They joined us for lunch, although they bought their own food this time, and the new, to us, Lego was much admired and played with.

Over the weekend we had a trip into the local town and managed to find a new pair of summer walking boots for me. Mine fell apart, literally, last year when on holiday, the soles collapsed on both boots. I have been using a my winter pair up until now, they are much more rigid and my feet do get hot in them at this time of year, even with the colder weather we have been experiencing. I am looking forward to trying them out.

On Sunday the children got the wooden railway track out and spend over an hour building a railway track complete with road and village together. It was lovely to listen to them playing together, taking and negotiating the differeent parts of their creation. The resulting layout was played with by one or both of them for the rest of the afternoon. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful week. I hope yours has been enjoyable too.

Camping

We have just returned from a few days camping, we had a wonderful, but tiring time. We joined some of our home ed friends to celebrate midsummer. We had our celebrations a day early as most of us had commitments on Thursday and had to go home.

We met at this wonderful campsite and the weather was fantastic. The sun was shining when we arrived on Tuesday and continued to shine until we went to bed the next day. Thursday was a different story cold and wet, it was interesting trying to load the car between the showers. Waterproof jacket and trousers with wellies ensured I stayed dry on the inside.

On Wednesday morning a musician joined us for some music making in the woods.  In the afternoon we had afternoon tea altogether, scones with cream and strawberries, Victoria sponge and flapjacks. We blessed the food before we ate it. We wore woven headdresses and we made streamers which we all danced in a circle with. At sunset we made a fire, we cooked on it and threw lavender in to it.  It was a calming and beautiful evening.  As sunset is so late, we were very late to bed.

During the whole period the children, and there were many of them, played and played and played together.  I hardly saw my eldest, he was off exploring and having adventures, returning occasionally for food or drink to the tent.  It was wonderful to watch the games they were playing together (when they were close enough to the tent to see them!), each time a different child leading but all of them making up the rules.

It was lovely to come together with friends to celebrate this special time of year.  We came home tired and happy, it is still raining and set to do so for a few more days, but we have memories of our time in the sun.