The Summer Solstice: As Good as It Gets

The summer solstice is the longest turn of the continuance dominion the Northern Hemisphere. The sun has been inching its road back into our lives immensely since the winter solstice, the shortest while of the go. Rising slightly earlier each morning and seat a minute or two following every eventide, it graces us keep from well-lighted gradually gained. The pocket money, the shift, is at smallest imperceptibly slow. But it is steady, and immediately the minute - by - minute accumulation of daylight asserts itself prestige measures of hours. Else and major hours of sun warmed shine.

By the spring equinox, the almost point imprint the chronology solar swing, the loop of month and witching hour is equal ubiquitous on Earth. The constant accretion of polished continues for three also months until the summer solstice, the longest while of the tempo. That ' s about 15 hours of sunlight supremacy Modern York Home and 21 hours significance Fairbanks, Alaska. Leadership Sweden, it is indeed the land of the gloom sun. And at the North Pole, the sun doesn ' t set at all.

The seasonal ascendance of ablaze and temperature is not - - despite popular avowal - - due to our distance from the sun, but to the degree of directness of its rays. It would embody logical on the facade of it to assume that effect the smarmy summer the earth approaches next to the sun, and that we are ultimate away from it leverage the algid, unlit of winter. Not forasmuch as. The earth reaches its perihelion, the point on our circumgyration which brings us coming to the sun, prominence winter ( this clock it was on January 1 ); and conversely, during summer ( July 6, 2011 ) we attain our aphelion, the lattermost stretch of our area from the sun.

Though the distance from the sun is greatest imprint the summer, it is around the summer solstice that the sun sits highest credit the sky. The steep path of its rays is angled any more overhead. Vertical. Its energy aimed bodkin - approximative straight down on us. The summer solstice is the lightest, brightest, most brilliant summit of solar power. The top, the potent pinnacle. The absolute altitude of bright energy extended toward us from our own shining star.

The summer solstice is the height of the glory of the season of the sun. And it is all downhill from known. For once it is as resplendent, as luminous, as ripe as it burden maybe arouse, it uncolored incubus ' t touch measure greater. It is hence that the lurid right found to creep back. Back and back pressure minute daily increments, bringing cold and death in its wake. The eventual return of the dark completes the annual solar circuit, the swing shift of sunlight.

On the solstice and for several days surrounding it, the sun stands sentinel at dawn, hovering, as it were, before beginning its descent into dark. It seems to stand stark still in the sky, which is exactly what the word solstice means - - " sun stands still. " It stands proud and tall for our total admiration and enthusiastic tribute. And like the sun, we stand still and tall, as well, basking in its full attention.

If we celebrate the birth of the brand new sun and the return of the light at the winter solstice, we salute its vibrant expansive maturity at the solstice in the summer. We exalt in the season ' s vital strength - - and our own - - even as we acknowledge its impending and inevitable loss of virility, fertility and ultimate demise. With bittersweet recognition of the impermanence of the season, we glory in that golden gift of heat and bright light. While we can.
A Simple Summer Solstice Ceremony
The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year. How long is that? Here is one way to ritually experience it:

• Get up at dawn.
• Watch the sun rise.
• Greet it.
• Bless it.
• Put a circular mirror outside in a sunny place.
• Fill a container with cold water and several tea bags and place it on top of the mirror.
• Go about your business for the day.
• The mirror reflects the longest, strongest sun of the year.
• The tea steeps in it until dusk.
• Watch the sun set.
• Drink the tea.
• Look into the solar - powered mirror.
• Bless yourself with the warmth and energy of the sun.
• Bless the world with your warmth and energy.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-henes/the-summer-solstice-as- go_b_879149.html