The Wheel of the Year makes its way around the southern bend of Summer Solstice into a standoff with Winter. At the Sun’s highest point, its light peaks here each year, now still a warm and building Yang energy that encourages our attention outward.
Easing out the door, we encounter our child-like sensuality. Taking in the smells and sounds of this new season, we celebrate the full opening of our physical forms. And as the doorway opens wider, the light bleeds even further through the crack. Singing, dancing, the heat finally bakes our bodies from the inside out, pulling on the creaks and the cold, the stagnancy deep in our bones.
Nature works effortlessly in our favor while we run and play. In this time of great and rapid growth we are driven by the element of Fire. To balance it, we call on the element of Water and other cool, Moon-like qualities to meet this most potent and natural form of masculine energy. Not yet edgy, the Sun God is now coupled with the purest feminine, Cancerian energies and the archetypal Goddesses.
Sulis leads the way, holding the polarities of Fire and Water in her making. Masculine and feminine, sun and moon, she is one with herself, a completely individuated female who expertly guides us further into the light. With her, we move beyond our known borders, searching until we reach equal darkness.
At Summer Solstice we look to the South where the fires of transformation burn; songs of life and its sweet melodies dance on the breeze. A chorus of frogs and birds, two and four-leggeds, everyone harmonizes, calling out in enthusiasm. The sounds of the rain falling, percussive-like in the background, entrance us like drumbeats to remind us that all is not lazy here and we continue to create shifts in our consciousness even while we play.
The fresh cleansing smells, combined with the pounding, snapping sounds of water falling on Earth beneath the Heavens, excavate the tunnel between our conscious and subconscious minds. At Solstice, we awaken to our mythical memories.
On this balance point, we stir our desires with courage to look into the ocean’s depths, the original mirror, seeing our own reflections. The sea is in the sky; it pours from the heavens. Summer expands time so we listen to sounds of the sea in the sky and the call of the Goddess who holds all things in equanimity.
Hail to the blue heron who carries us through the gateway; hail to the blue green sea reflected in the sky; hail to the Queen of emotion, the mistress of compassion for witnessing our dive. May they reveal our innermost feelings, our deepest emotions and bring them to the surface for expression and healing. Hail to the Sun whose Fiery light calls in the power of the Water at Summer Solstice.
Invocation of Sulis
Sulis with your eye wide open, help us see our individual flame, shining light on the entrance so clearly. Open the gate so we can dive with you into the healing spring waters, and the sea inside. Guide us; show us the way as we plumb and explore our depths on this journey toward the light, health and wholeness.
You carry both the flame and the spring of life, Sulis; we call on you to choreograph this Water dance of sensitivity, we call on you to give us strength as we walk through the Fire. Flowing, yet deliberate in our actions, we glide, our heads above water, moving over the rapids with grace and agility.
So multi-faceted and unbridled, our path seems incredibly perilous. Yet as water, we move effortlessly fast around the rocks, buoyant and spontaneous. At times we feel aimless in our search and we drift along waiting and wanting to fill something up. At times our Fire is so overwhelming, we find ourselves standing in dried-up riverbeds, breathing in the dust of our intensity and our destructive natures.
When we stay our course though, powerful in the stillness, the vessel appears and we are complete. Sun to Moon, Heaven to Earth, masculine to feminine, Yin to Yang, we are full and yet we are empty simultaneously.
Ease is our state of mind. As we move with you, our trust grows and our own eye expands. We can now see how you take us over the hidden boulders, through whirlpools that spin us around and frequently take our breath away; sometimes we are even at edge of death. As our own eye opens, we see that going with the flow takes us places we’ve never dreamed of before, out of our safe little streams into the rushing, pulsing rivers of the deep.
Journey Inward: Divine Flow and Rhythms of Life
Take a moment to relax, lying down on your back. Use props under your head and knees if you like. Breath naturally for several inhalations and exhalations, letting your bones be heavy, sinking into the floor; allow your eyes to drop to the back of your head. If you desire, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth–even somewhat forcefully for a bit–to release stagnant energies. Then, breathe naturally and quietly through your nose.
As you breathe into your nose, feel the air moving from the nasal passages, down past your throat, down through your spine. Repeat this several times. As you breathe out, listen to the air passing through, brushing all sides of your throat like a wind; it’s a little like snoring. Breathe in and out through this place in the back of your throat; it’s like listening to the ocean in a huge conch shell.
Now imagine you are floating on a lake. Keep breathing, continuing to listen to the sea inside. Allow your breath to expand into the depth, the width and length of this lake; watch as your breath moves in all directions, like little waves lapping onto the shores.
Feel the mist on your skin, penetrating and entering your pores. Feel the water under your skin; see the clear crystal blue quality of its energy moving through you. This water flows through your veins and nerve pathways, through your subtle energy channels, your meridians and through your fascia. It occupies the space between the layers of your aura.
Your breath becomes the rivers, the tides and currents moving through all of your energy channels. Feel the water surrounding your bones and vital organs, moving into your cells, cleansing and purifying, flowing, open and receptive. You are the ocean.
Feel the water moving up your spine, pooling in each chakra along the way, expanding your intuition as it reaches your head, opening your eye.
Feel it cooling your brain as the water moves up from your kidneys, calming the Fire in your head.
Let this watery breath fountain out through your crown and into your aura. Feel it moving down into your arms and legs, it also fountains out your soles and palms. Feel this loving water element healing your emotional body. Feel your own vitality and life force quicken as you merge with the water on the planet.
Be still here as long as you like.
When you’re ready, bring your knees to your chest, roll over to the right and lie still for a bit longer. When you are ready, sit up. Sit still, breathe and feel the sea inside; when you are ready, stand up.
Water is always here, inside your body; its constant state of motility healing and purifying everywhere it goes.
The information here has been compiled from various personal experiences as well as teachings and information from Kathy Jones’ book “Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess,” Mara Freeman’s book, “Kindling the Celtic Spirit,” and Frank MacEowen’s book, “The Celtic Way of Seeing.”
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