The Nudge | Dispatch 5
Welcome to The Nudge | Summer Solstice 2022
This seasonal care package has been prepared by The Trailblazery team.
“Both the Winter and the Summer Solstices are expressions of love. They show us the opposition of light and dark, expansion and contraction, that characterize our experiences in the Earth school so that we can recognize our options as we move through our lives.”
- Gary Zukav
Dear Friends,
We are delighted to be preparing our care package, The Nudge, for you as we approach the Summer Solstice on June 21 in the northern hemisphere, one of four solar festivals on the Medicine Wheel of the Year. On this midsummer day, the light triumphs and occupies a large part of both daytime and nighttime hours. It’s a time where we celebrate the complete blossoming of the seeds sown back in the depths of winter.
Solstice means “standstill” as it appears that the sun rises in the same location in the East and sets at the same location in the West for three days surrounding the Solstice. Here in Ireland around the Summer Solstice, we have only about 4 hours of darkness until the birds begin to sing awake another day.
Even though growth and expansion will continue until Lughnasa with the ripening, flourishing and fruition of the seeds sown in winter, at the summer solstice we have reached the climax. Just as we experience at the Winter Solstice (mid-winter), there is a turning of energies, a beautiful polarity embedded in the solstice. From this point in the cycle there will be a sense of moving inward, a gentle declining of the light, subtle signs of death and darkness. From this day of equal night and day the days will slowly start to get shorter.
In the past..
Our ancestors lived in alignment with the natural cycles and honoured this time with ritual and ceremony. At midsummer, the focus was on preserving and storing as much of the nourishing light as possible. The element of fire, which represents the sun's power, was ritually brought into contact with the land and crops to ensure good growth. Ceremonial midsummer bonfires were lit at sunset on the eve of the Solstice as an elicitation of the sun’s power and protection. People also jumped over the fire to gain a blessing from this powerful element, taking the fire energy into themselves and storing it to be used as protection in later times of darkness or uncertainty. The ashes of the bonfire were spread on the fields to summon the nourishing and fertilizing power of the sun and people would mark themselves with black ashes for luck.
Like many ancient cultures harvesting herbs in bloom was central to summer solstice festivities for medicine making. The druids harvested the special herbs in a special magical ritual to capture the maximum healing power imbued by the sun. The herbs harvested at this time included St. John’s Wort, Yarrow, Elderflower and Meadowsweet.
The pre-Celtic people left many monuments and tombs aligned with the Sun and it appears that the Celts absorbed these celebrations and power places into their ritual calendar. The magnificent Grange stone circle (which is pre-Celtic) at Lough Gur in Limerick is aligned with the rising sun of the summer solstice. It’s the largest site of its kind with 113 standing stones.
These days, the festival is celebrated all over the country but people gather on the Hill of Tara at dawn on the summer solstice to mark the festival.
loghgur.com
Starting TONIGHT
Hedge School | Summer Programme:
“This place we call home”
Our Summer Programme is called This Place We Call Home - a cultural immersion to celebrate the festivals of Bealtaine, Summer Solstice and Lughnasa - the Summer Season of the ancient Wheel of the Year.
Our Summer Solstice event “Field Notes - Exploring the Healing Powers of the Natural World” will take place online this Sunday, June 19th at 7pm Ireland time.
Our guests that evening will be 2 formidable Derry women - author Kerry Ní Dochartaigh and actor and singer Bronagh Gallagher. Kerry is the author of the highly acclaimed “Thin Places” and Bronagh has appeared in The Commitments and Pulp Fiction
Tickets for this 90 min online event cost €33 and we still have some places left. To book your spot, visit our website here
You can purchase a season ticket to all 3 calls here for €88 and you will automatically receive a recording of the Bealtaine call from May 01.
Bronagh Gallagher “Heal Me”
Some Journal Prompts to inspire you, as we approach Summer Solstice:
🌞 Who would you be if you were shining your brightest in the world? What would it look like?
🌞 What’s stopping you from shining your brightest right now in your life?
🌞 What light are you offering to the world?
🌞 How can you work with that light to expand it or dial it down?
🌞 What lies in the shadow that asks to be illuminated?
🌞 How will you honour the long days of light and sunshine? What rituals are calling you?
What’s coming up over the next
6 weeks at The Trailblazery:
As the Great Wheel turns yet again, we are invited to pause and remember what we have traveled through together. We are excited to let you know what we have coming up for you over the next 6 weeks here at The Trailblazery:
Moon Medicine
Our monthly gatherings, which moved online in 2020, align with the lunar cycle. We meet around every Full Moon and welcome inspiring guest luminaries to share her story, experience and wisdom with us. We also invite extraordinary musicians and performers to play at our gatherings. This is an opportunity to illuminate and celebrate our creative life force and sovereignty.
Tickets for our July gathering will go on sale on Monday, May 06. Cost is €25, but we offer a limited number of free spots each month for those who need it.
If you haven’t already, you can sign up to our Moon Medicine mailing list here to be informed of all upcoming events.
Summer Solstice is the time of year when the bright expansive masculine extroverted energy peaks.
EnJOY these days - may the brightening light be yours.
Thank you for walking this path with us,
Beannachtaí agus Beir Bua
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery
Highlights of our gatherings
Put on the kettle, make a cuppa and watch some golden moments from the musicians and performers who have joined us here at The Trailblazery.
We are looking forward to our first Hedge School Live gathering with our dear friend Siobhan Moore a.k.a Ajeet on Saturday, 22 October. Join us for an evening in the ambient, meditative space of Christ Church Cathedral in the heart of Dublin, for a truly original musical journey. You can find more info here.
Recommended Resources
Here are a few reading, watching and listening pieces to nourish your senses in the days ahead:
♪ Listen: For your ears
Our Robyn aka Roo Elizabeth has released a brand new single called My Everything Great and we love love love it. Click here to listen
Other favourites for your ears:
For All Our Days that Tear the Heart by Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler
And a great Summer playlist:
Summer Solstice Playlist by 3rd Ritual
✦ Smell: For your Nose
Elderflower:
The elderflower season is short—late May to mid-July. This refreshing homemade elderflower cordial is perfect with sparkling water on a summer day. It’s a great excuse for a long walk collecting flowers! Check out the recipe here
St. John’s Wort:
Blooming on the Summer Solstice, St. John's wort has been used for a variety of conditions, including kidney and lung ailments, insomnia, and depression, and to aid wound healing historically.
Yarrow:
Yarrow is used for fever, common cold, hay fever, absence of menstruation, dysentery, diarrhea, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal (GI) tract discomfort, and to induce sweating. From Irish folklore, for safety when going on a journey it was said to pull 10 leaves of the yarrow and throw one leaf away put the 9 others in a white cloth and tie it with a string around your neck.
✯ Watch: For your eyes
We recently saw the exquisite Irish language film An Cailín Ciúin in Ireland and we can't recommend it highly enough. It won the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury for Best Film, after premiering at the Berlin festival. It's the first time an Irish language film won an award at the Berlin Festival, a world renowned showcase of cinema.
❤ Read: For your heart
Our friend Angela Scanlon has written a book and it's brilliant. Make sure Joy Rider is on your reading list this summer.
Kathy wrote a piece all about the Summer Solstice for Irish Central. You can read it here.
Our Summer Solstice Guide is Kerri ní Dochartaigh and her debut novel Thin Places is a breathtaking mix of memoir, nature writing and history.
✬ Connect: For your Soul
Kim Krans is a visionary artist, author, and creator of The New York Times bestseller The Wild Unknown Tarot and other breath-taking decks, books, journals and guidebooks.Though revered for her publications Krans is also a multi-media artist, filmmaker, and musician.
❤ Touch: For your pleasure
Our friends at The Tweed Project have just launched a brand The New Collection Mega-shrooms / Summer 2022. Check it here.