Here we come to it again. The high, holy midpoint of the year. We are halfway to somewhere or something, and halfway past that other place and time that chronicled 2023’s arrival.

And maybe this still point, this Midway Madness, is the posture best assumed for this day. To plant yourself outside, in whatever way you are able, preferably in full sun unless you, too, are a PNWer (in which case you will need to make do with a grey blanket of cloud).

For this Summer Solstice exercise, I invite you to embody boldness. Dare to take up space, be that with a wide stance or a certain upper body swagger. With palms facing upwards, stretch your arms out east and west as far as you can. Elongate your neck and angle your face due north to the sky. Close your eyes if you feel inclined and imagine yourself to be a human scale that measures and holds all of it.

Take a moment to marvel how it is that you’re doing this all the time without realizing it. Notice all that you’ve been balancing in life. Put your past baggage of these previous months on the scale of your left or right hand. What has this spring season and even this year held so far? What successes, failures, trials, and triumphs?

Cup all those large and small things in your palm. Feel the weight of them. Now juxtapose that with what’s to come – your dreams and anticipations. What wants to be welcomed into your life? What new light? What fresh love? What bold learning? What shy longings? Let those fill your other hand and spill through your fingers. Be the cup that overflows.

You are holding it all – past, present, future. You are like the goddess Themis who has the power to tip the scales to a more equitable and divinely deserving outcome. Mesh the bounty of what was and will be into a ball that you fling out into the ether. Rub your palms together. Feel and hear the friction of that residual energy. Now bring your hands and place them upon your upper belly, your solar plexus, as a way to acknowledge that at each moment, you have the power to create balance, cast wishes, and shift energy, like an oracle or a sun dial.

And as you breathe into this truth, remember that you are the chimerical progeny of the Midsummer goddess. Reach back into the abundant garden of your ancestral lineage and clasp her beckoning hand. To do so will be to join the grand circle and council of all the solar deities.

Does that all sound woo? Splendid. Woo is where it’s at, little darling. Woo is the way and the truth and the light today. 😉 Summer Solstice invites us outdoors. It asks us to consider some kind of alchemical rite in which we might transfigure what was into some new form. Earth. Fire. Water. Air. Bring all the elements to bear as you usher in this new season.

I say, forage nature’s bounty this day. Make a head wreath as crown or pluck a flower whose petals resemble your own luminous rays and who reminds you of how you, too, are solar powered. Choose your own adventure. And if that fails to elicit a response, feel free to mine inspiration from my summer solstice blog archives (2020, 2017, 2016, 2015).

Today, together with this bright new season ahead, is for preening. It’s for celebrating the high heat of your own aliveness.

Let it be a dance, step lively, salute the sun with a silliness only you can muster, and do your part to sing summer into being.