Summer Solstice, 2025
June 20, 2025 at 10:42 pm EDT Midsummer
Dear, Relaxed, and Energized Children of the Earth,
Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, is here. Every living being in the Northern Hemisphere is feeling the warmth, the life-giving properties of the Sun at its fullest.
Celebrations of Midsummer have always been about reconnecting with the Earth: enjoying a physical, limbic relationship with Her. Swimming, eating outside, hiking or sitting on your stoop, Summertime feels good.
Being out in Nature relaxes us and brings us out of our heads, out of all the “what ifs” and into the present, green, miraculous moment.
In the language of Astrology, this Summer’s Solstice is influenced by the Sun (Vitality, Our Life Force) entering Cancer (the sign of the Nurturer). The Sun is making a square (Needing, Understanding) aspect to Saturn (Structure, Authority) conjoining Neptune (Awareness of the Big Picture, Compassion) in the sign of Aries (The Warrior).
In the macrocosm of our outer world and the microcosm of our own personal lives, we are being asked to balance our need to be in control. At the same time, we must draw upon our deep understanding of the ethical principle (considered a ‘Golden Rule’ in many religions):
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
Our Soul’s Journey here on this beautiful planet is at a collective crossroad.
How do we choose to take up our roles in the physical, material world?
Can we believe in the practical reality of compassion and kindness?
I usually choose a short poem to include with these “newsletters” but today I’d like to include a long-ish one. I recommend reading it out loud, if possible.
May you all keep this Solstice by remembering your connection to this beautiful Earth.
Namaste,
Mary
* * *
A Poem on Hope
It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
For hope must not depend on feeling good
And there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
Of the future, which surely will surprise us,
…And hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
And more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?
Tell them at least what you say to yourself.
Because we have not made our lives to fit
Our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
The streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge
Of what it is that no other place is, and by
Your caring for it as you care for no other place, this
Place that you belong to though it is not yours,
For it was from the beginning and will be to the end
Belong to your place by knowledge of the other who are
Your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,
Who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,
And the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike
Fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing
In the trees and the silence of the fisherman
And the heron, and the trees that keep the land
They stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.
This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power
Or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful
when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy
when they ask for your land and your work.
Answer with knowledge of the others who are here
And how to be here with them. By this knowledge
Make the sense you need to make. By it stand
In the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.
Speak to your fellow humans as your place
Has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.
Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it
Before they had heard a radio. Speak
Publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.
Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
From the pages of books and from your own heart.
Be still and listen to the voices that belong
To the stream banks and the trees and the open fields
There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,
By which it speaks for itself and no other.
Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground
Underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls
Freely upon it after the darkness of the nights
And the darkness of our ignorance and madness.
Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,
Which is the light of imagination. By it you see
The likeness of people in other places to yourself
In your place. It lights invariably the need for care
Toward other people, other creatures, in other places
As you would ask them to care toward your place and you.
No place at last is better than the world. The world
Is not better than its places. Its places at last
Are no better than their people while their people
Continue in them. When the people make
Dark the light within them, the world darkens
* * *
Learn More About the Summer Solstice
The Origins and Practices of Litha from Boston Public Library
What the 2025 Summer Solstice Means for Your Zodiac Sign from Reader’s Digest