Litha: Summer Solstice, Embodied Sovereignty, and the Courage to be Seen | S2 Ep.14-এর সম্পূর্ণ প্রতিলিপি

00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:03.439 Vervaine, mugwort, yarrow. 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:07.920 Women wove flower crowns and wore them through the night. 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:19.439 And there's something in that image, the flower crown, the woman adorned, the body decorated for the height of the year, Venus's body that I want to come back to. 00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:36.639 Because alongside all of this fire, all of this solar heat and high invisibility, which as someone with so much water and earth elements is hard for me on occasion, there was water. 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:45.600 This is the part that doesn't always get named in midsummer celebrations, and I think it's essential because it's water and sun that creates life. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.279 And so sacred wells were visited at Litha. 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:54.879 Rivers and lakes were bathed in, water was drawn before dawn for healing. 00:06:54.959 --> 00:07:04.560 And in many traditions, the dew gathered on midsummer's morning was considered to have special properties, to be healing for the skin, clarifying for the eyes. 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.600 You could try that this year if you live somewhere that gets dew. 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:21.680 I don't get dew, but I will be harvesting some uh peppermint and lemon balm to make an overnight tea on Midsummer's Eve this year. 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:27.199 But people brought the water element deliberately into the fire festival. 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:31.920 And that wasn't to extinguish the fire, but to balance it. 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:37.199 And on a personal note, I'm a moon being. 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:40.000 I'm pretty fundamentally yin. 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:47.759 I don't always sound that way because my my moon is ironically in Gemini, um, which is a little bit more yang energy. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:01.839 But the rest of my astrology, my Ayurvedic constituencies, my um in five five element Chinese medicine, I'm earth. 00:08:02.079 --> 00:08:05.920 And so I'm primarily earth and water pretty much everywhere. 00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:08.639 Dark moons, the long nights. 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:11.680 That's my body's native territory. 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:16.560 And the solstice, the summer solstice is not where I live most naturally. 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:23.279 And every year at Litha, I have to find my way in, and my way in is water. 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:28.399 The cooling element, the balance to the solar fire that the season demands. 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:31.199 Right now that's literal. 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:39.919 Um I've had some plantar fasciitis, which is like little micro tears in your heel from Red Rocks. 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:42.000 We were at a show at Red Rocks. 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:44.799 Um, my partner and I, we go see Trevor Hall every year. 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:49.120 Um I have high arches, and Red Rocks is always worth it. 00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:56.399 And yet the rest afterwards is genuinely hard when every instinct is pulling me toward getting outside. 00:08:56.720 --> 00:09:01.679 Um my body is asking for stillness and water and tending. 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:19.759 And the fire energy is asking for action and being outside and hiking, and um this is exactly why the ancestors built water into the fire festival. 00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:24.960 They knew solar energy without the water element just burns. 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:30.000 So if you're a moon being finding your way to Litha, the water rituals are for you. 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:32.799 Um, they are part of the tradition. 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:37.360 And one that I love is a water crossing ritual. 00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:40.960 That's what I plan to be doing on Solstice this year. 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:42.879 It's to cross a creek. 00:09:43.919 --> 00:09:49.600 Um, and talking about crossings, I want to talk a little bit about the oak king and the holly king. 00:09:50.639 --> 00:09:56.559 Because this is the mythic heart of Litha in the Celtic tradition, and I want to give it some space. 00:09:56.799 --> 00:10:08.879 So the Oak King has res has reigned since Yule, since the winter solstice, the darkest night of the year, when the light began its slow return. 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:14.720 He is the king of the waxing year, the light half, the growing season. 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:22.960 Under his reign, the days lengthen, the earth warms, the world becomes greener and reaches upward. 00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:25.919 He is energy expansion. 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:29.600 He's the force of life pressing outward into form. 00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:41.919 In the old stories, sometimes he's depicted as a great horned stag or a man crowned with oak leaves, or simply as the sun itself in its ascending arc. 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:48.159 Um, he's beloved, he's the king at its fullest, his reign is the season of abundance. 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:50.960 He grows the abundance. 00:10:51.200 --> 00:11:02.879 But at Litha, which is the absolute peak of his power, and that's key, in the fullness of what he's brought into being, the Holly King rises to meet him. 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:09.200 And the Holly King is the king of the waning year, the dark half, the descending light. 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:15.360 He rules the season that's coming, the shortening days, turning inward, the preparation for winter. 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:18.159 That's not to say we don't still have a lot of summer left, right? 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:20.159 We're in this transition point, though. 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:21.840 It's the point of transition. 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:26.399 The Holly King is not a villain, though sometimes he's portrayed as such. 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:27.519 He's necessary. 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:31.360 He's what comes after the peak, and the peak cannot hold forever. 00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:37.039 In some tellings, they meet in battle. 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:39.440 In others, it's simply a yielding.

00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:41.279 And I kind of love that idea. 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:47.120 The Oak King recognizing that his season has reached its fullness and stepping aside. 00:11:56.399 --> 00:11:59.600 Not at the diminishment, not when he's like fading. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:10.799 He is most fully himself, and he still has energy, and there will still be energy put into the earth for a few more months that is going to feel like Oak King. 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:16.559 He's most fully himself at Litha, and that's exactly when he makes room. 00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:25.360 That is a teaching about power that our culture has almost completely lost. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:36.399 We understand power as accumulation, as holding on to what you have, as refusal to yield until forced. 00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:40.240 The Oak King offers a different model entirely. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.519 He's saying, I have brought everything I have to this season. 00:12:45.759 --> 00:12:48.480 I have given him everything the light asked of me. 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:55.679 And from that fullness, not from defeat, not from exhaustion, but from completion, I make room. 00:12:57.279 --> 00:12:59.039 That's sovereignty. 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:02.960 That's divine masculine. 00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:15.279 And so Litha, I think for us, this year in particular, um, is asking a particular question. 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:24.320 And this year's Litha is aligned with Chiron moving into Taurus, which is happening today, Friday, June 19th. 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:27.759 Um, which I think I'll talk about a little bit later. 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:31.200 But part of this question is coming from that. 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:37.279 And the question's not are you productive enough, healed enough, ready enough, but can you be seen? 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:43.120 There's a difference between being visible and being seen. 00:13:44.559 --> 00:13:49.840 Visible is more of a strategy in a way. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.320 It's but being seen is a somatic state. 00:13:55.039 --> 00:14:03.840 It requires the nervous system to actually allow the gaze and not to contract, not to manage, not to perform around it. 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:11.840 And for most women, this is where it gets complicated because we've been subjected to the male gaze as a threat and consumption our whole lives. 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:21.919 The nervous system doesn't distinguish cleanly between being witnessed by someone who loves you and being evaluated by someone who wants to diminish you until you teach it too. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.320 You have to teach your nervous system that distinguishment. 00:14:24.559 --> 00:14:28.799 Because historically, those have often been the same watcher. 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:36.080 And so our bodies learn to stay small because staying small is how you've stayed safe. 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:43.360 We've been told that being too visible is selfish, that if you have too much light, it's arrogance. 00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:45.200 This is not abstract. 00:14:45.279 --> 00:15:03.519 It's in the body, it's in the instinct to turn the camera slightly away, to qualify what you're saying when you're speaking your truth before you've even spoken it to shrink, um to shrink your physical form. 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:15.279 And then Litha comes around every year and asks you to stand in it, to stand in your power at your fullness, and to not contract. 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:22.080 And this is also where the witch wound lives in the background of this conversation, which I gotta name. 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:35.759 Um, not as today's focus, but as a thread worth naming, because the historical reality that women is that women who were visible, who held power or knowledge or influence, who shone too brightly, were punished for it. 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:43.279 And the historical reality is that women were pitted against each other for survival and women turned each other in. 00:15:43.600 --> 00:16:13.759 And we still do this when we see another woman standing in her power, the instinct that has been almost crosswired at this point is to want to diminish it because you feel insecure, because you sense that feeling of it's not safe and I want that, but I can't do that. 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:20.799 Rather than to say, damn, like good for her. 00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:24.080 She can shine and I can shine. 00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:26.000 There's space for both. 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.759 Um that's how it used to be. 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:47.759 And then this witch wound came in, and that lives in all of us, whether or not you had ancestors that lived through that, or just people in the community, or just people who heard about it, that lives in the nervous system. 00:16:49.519 --> 00:16:53.200 It's not ancient history for your nervous system. 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:56.159 It's ancestral and intergenerational trauma. 00:16:56.399 --> 00:17:06.400 The freeze that rises before you speak, before you post something, before you learn to take up space, even if you've been invited to take up space. 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:11.119 It's an intelligent system doing exactly what it learned to do. 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:18.160 And the sky on June 17th, a few days ago, this is where my Venus moment is going to come in. 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:27.119 I'm going to give you a little Venus astrology, um, was speaking to this because Venus um is at five degrees in Leo. 00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:29.200 On the 17th, it was, I should say. 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:30.640 It might be at six now. 00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:38.720 Um, but it moved into exact opposition with Pluto at five degrees Aquarius. 00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:44.880 And so Venus is the planet of feminine, of worth, of how we show up in relationship. 00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:46.559 Venus is Aphrodite. 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:54.880 Um, now it's in Leo, Leo's the lion, Leo's the sun, the sign of sovereignty and

visibility. 00:17:56.079 --> 00:18:09.759 And it's been in Venus is in direct tension with Pluto, which means that Pluto is asking what this visibility is going to cost and what it's going to transform. 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:16.720 Being seen right now is not decorative, it's alchemical. 00:18:18.400 --> 00:18:26.799 And on June 19th, which is today, uh, a few days before the solstice, if you're listening to this on Friday, you might be listening to this later. 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:27.680 That's fine. 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:35.759 Um, but on June 19th, two days before the solstice, Chiron is crossing into Taurus for the first time since the mid-1980s. 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:37.440 This is a big deal. 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:39.680 Chiron is the wounded healer. 00:18:39.839 --> 00:18:42.000 We've talked about Chiron before. 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:49.519 Um, episode a few episodes ago where I talk about Chiron and Hygia and being a healer. 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:58.880 But Chiron is the wounded healer and he's entering the sign of Taurus, which is the body, Earth, um, sensuality. 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:10.079 It's actually Venus's home sign of what it means to be a physical being, physical creature who takes up actual space. 00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:12.640 And this is a preview. 00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:21.279 Chiron's going to retrograde back into Aries in September, and then it'll settle fully into Taurus next April, where it'll stay through 2033. 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:31.440 But it begins on June 19th, right at this threshold of solstice, and Chiron in Taurus is asking: is your body safe to inhabit? 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:37.359 Not, will I be safe enough once I've earned enough, performed enough, shrunk enough? 00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:52.079 The question underneath that, whether your physical existence in your actual size, at your actual pace, taking up your actual space as you are right now, is allowed. 00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:59.759 And I'm thinking about my heel as I ask this question, my little plantar fasciitis. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.559 Um, a few days after Red Rocks, like the day after Red Rox, I could hardly walk in the morning. 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:14.240 And the frustration of that, like wanting to be on a trail, wanting to move through the world in my full capacity, and being asked instead to rest to tend to be still. 00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:19.920 That's Chiron finding the wound before the planet even officially crosses. 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:22.480 The body knowing before the sky. 00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:26.400 That wound is old collectively, too. 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:29.839 It runs through the witch wound without being exactly the same thing. 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:31.519 But you can hear it. 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:34.880 You can hear, am I allowed to be me? 00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:40.079 Am I allowed to be me embodied in my fullness? 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:42.079 It's Chiron's question. 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:43.839 Is the embodied piece? 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:45.359 The can I be seen? 00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:47.119 Is the Leo piece? 00:20:47.359 --> 00:20:49.279 The witch wound is both. 00:20:50.079 --> 00:20:54.880 The witch wound is am I allowed to be seen in my fullness? 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:04.400 And Chiron is showing us this. 00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:09.039 It's illuminating everybody that learned to contract in order to survive. 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:16.400 Chiron is asking us to see the pattern, name it, and begin the slow work of tending it. 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:27.359 And so, what moves in you this solstice around embodiment, about around being in your fullest self, that's not random. 00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:31.680 That's the beginning of something that is going to be running through 2033. 00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:34.640 You're at the opening of a long initiation. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:43.279 And I'm going to circle back to the masculine thread for a second here with the oak king, because the oak king yields at the height. 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:52.000 And that's worth feeling into because it points at something about what holding space actually looks like. 00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:58.240 The divine masculine, in its matured expression, doesn't fill every room. 00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:59.759 It creates space within. 00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:01.279 Within the room. 00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:04.559 It witnesses without consuming. 00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:07.920 That's not weakness. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.720 It's the fullness of what sovereignty can do when it's not afraid of someone else's light. 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:22.000 When that kind of holding is present in a relationship, in friendships with other women, right? 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:28.240 In a community, women's visibility becomes possible differently. 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:31.440 The nervous system learns something new. 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:40.559 That being seen doesn't have to mean being consumed, doesn't have to mean being envied, being feared, being ostracized. 00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:47.440 That's the partnership that Litha asks for in ourselves and in our relationships, right? 00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:49.759 We all have masculine and feminine within us. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:01.359 So what we're asking is our inner divine masculine to be in its mature expression, to witness our inner feminine and hold space for it without consuming. 00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:05.839 We're asking that of men in our lives. 00:23:06.079 --> 00:23:10.640 We're asking that of the masculine in each other. 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:31.039 And so for this solstice, I wanted to offer a practice or two. 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:39.039 And I'm actually gonna, I think I'm gonna split this up into like if you feel like you're primarily a solar being or a moon being. 00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:45.519 You can think about this as am I holding more masculine energy or more feminine energy? 00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.799 Am I holding more

yang energy or yin energy? 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:50.880 Like, where's your comfort zone? 00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:54.799 Where do you feel like you shine brightest to? 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:59.599 Um, or maybe you want to do both. 00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:02.480 Maybe you want to challenge yourself to be in both places. 00:24:02.720 --> 00:24:11.119 But if you're a solar being, a fire person, someone who comes alive in summer light, stand in it. 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:13.359 Literally stand in it. 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:16.559 Feel the sunlight on your skin. 00:24:17.440 --> 00:24:19.599 Notice what your body does. 00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:22.000 Do you turn away? 00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:23.680 Do you shade your face? 00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.240 Can you stay and feel the sun? 00:24:29.359 --> 00:24:30.880 Can you let it in? 00:24:31.680 --> 00:24:32.880 And wear sunscreen. 00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:34.000 I'll throw that out there. 00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:36.400 I'm pale, so we'll wear sunscreen. 00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:40.799 But but then go outside. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.640 Lay down a blanket in the grass. 00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:51.279 Put on your swimsuit and feel the sun on your skin. 00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:00.000 Notice what happens as you receive the sun. 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:04.640 As you let the sun see you. 00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:21.039 And if you're a moon being, yin dominant, someone who finds the solstice too hot, perhaps, bring in the water element. 00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:25.599 Perhaps it's a bowl of water set in the morning sun. 00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:31.119 Um perhaps you make moon water on Midsummer's Eve. 00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:33.839 A bath drawn with herbs. 00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:41.359 Putting your feet in a river or a stream or whatever body of water is around that feels right. 00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:47.920 The ancestors knew that litha without water is just burning. 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:52.319 You're not opting out of the fire festival by tending to your nervous system with water. 00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:54.640 You're practicing the full tradition. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:01.440 And whichever one of these practices you choose, both are asking the same thing underneath. 00:26:01.839 --> 00:26:06.799 And that's where in your body do you contract when you're asked to be seen? 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:10.559 Can you stay with that? 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.039 Not force it open, just stay. 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:39.119 And if there are women in your life who are able to witness you without diminishing you, who are able to witness you in your fullness, and if they notice that they're feeling anything but happy for you, they're able to notice that and name it for themselves rather than keeping it in the shadow. 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:43.119 Tend those relationships this season. 00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:45.680 That co-regulation is real. 00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:59.759 That's not optional, it's the work. 00:27:01.839 --> 00:27:08.880 Your nervous system, Venus energy, needs safety to shine in her fullness. 00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:10.720 That's okay. 00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:18.640 And so the ask is to surround yourself with people, with things that feel safe. 00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:20.880 And Chiron's gonna ask this of us too, right? 00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:34.480 Like Taurus gets a bad rap for being materialistic, but it's okay to want to feel safe, to want to feel cozy, to want to feel held in your environment. 00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:40.480 The feminine needs that to open, the feminine needs safety to open. 00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:43.920 That's okay. 00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:58.079 The hardest part is learning to create that safety in your life for yourself in relationship to yourself, is usually the first place to start. 00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:01.519 And so the solstice is the longest day. 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:12.720 And we're coming up on that, and then on the other side of that, it'll it feels almost imperceptible, it's slow, but the turn does begin. 00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:18.960 The oak king yields, and the light starts its long return to dark. 00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:34.720 And so as we as we move into that, this lesson that you take from solstice of what is it to be seen, embodied? 00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:38.000 What is it to be seen, embodied? 00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:48.960 You'll get to take that lesson, that work, whatever arises, into the shadow for the next half of the year. 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:51.279 Because you were here. 00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:52.880 You were seen. 00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:57.759 Subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode. 00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:01.680 Trust the spiral. 00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:10.880 This podcast offers spiritual and psychological education and priestess wisdom. 00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:14.720 This is not therapy, counseling, or mental health treatment. 00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:24.079 If you need mental health support, please contact a licensed provider and in a mental health emergency in the U.S., call 988.