The Muse in the Mirror

🌞💖🌞 Happy Summer Solstice everyone! 🌞💖🌞

Today, the 21st June is the Summer Solstice in the Northern hemisphere, and Winter Solstice in the Southern hemisphere. It marks the longest hours of daylight as the sun reaches its peek in the sky, with themes of rejoice, renewal and replenishment. A special time to celebrate the abundance of life; nature is ripe, flourishing with offerings of life and beauty – for which we are grateful for. Likewise, nature holds up a mirror for us to celebrate our own personal ripening, abundance and blessings in our lives.

I love to celebrate be getting creative, whilst honouring the light around and within me. I share a selection of my solstice inspired creations so that you may be inspired to create your own celebrations, unique to your own journey and beliefs. For more information about the solstice – its origins, traditions and for some celebratory ideas, see my blog post; The Magic of the Summer Solstice: Sacred Celebrations for Midsummer.  Or for ideas about celebrating the Winter Solstice, click here.

The flower mandala above was made mindfully as an offering of gratitude for the bountiful harvest nature offers, thanks to the sustenance of the sun. Whist creating them, I looked within to acknowledge my own achievements over the past 6 months, and to count my blessings, giving thanks for all that I have. I also spent some time envisioning the harvest to come in the next phase of the wheel of the year as an act of conscious creation. To see more of my flower mandalas, see my blog post; ‘The Art of Nature Mandalas’.

I find this solstice gateway offers potent energies to magnify the power of abundance in all areas of our lives…

…and being grateful for what we already have is a wonderful way to amplify abundance back to us. This mandala below was created using acrylic paint and collage with this radiance in mind. Seeking inspiration from the suns rays, it represents the radiating out of love, light, joy and abundance in our own lives.

Below is another piece of artwork to represent the peek growth of Summer Solstice, created using watercolour paints. I wanted to capture the radiating quality of nature at this time as it peeks in outer growth, reaching it’s full potential. I hope it inspires each of us to reach for our full potential and flourish and bloom like summer. When we follow our passions, the inner fire within our hearts ignites and aligns us with our souls energy – a blueprint of our true mastery, a potential that exists within each of us. This was created as one of an eight part series depicting each of the segments on the wheel of the year – or sabbats as known to pagans. This includes the solstices and equinoxes and the cross quarter celebrations – click here to view the whole set.

This beautiful passage by Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw from Celebrating the Great Mother, sums up the path towards reaching our own full potential. Just like nature, it can’t be rushed. A certain amount of patience, allowing and surrendering to the ever intelligent flow of the universe is required.

“Summer teaches us patience. The fruit is green until it’s ripe and you just can’t rush it. Something of the slow, sure rhythm of the time will enter into us if we let it; no, we can’t hurry things, but if we just relax and let go, things will reach their fullness without effort or ego’s striving on our part….”

~ Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw

Finally I share a painting I LOVE by an incredible nature based artist Amanda Clark. To me its a celebration of the earths beauty at this time and also a reminder to offer gratitude to the humble bee, without whom the earths bounty would not be possible. Without the pollination of our plants and flowers, the abundance of the earth would greatly reduce, as would our food supply. I love the poignant message in this painting along with its beauty. I was inspired to write a blog post about the vital importance of saving the bees here, where I share simple ideas to help preserve them.

 I leave you with a beautiful blessing by an unknown author. However you choose to celebrate, may it be a blessed and blissful one.

Love Emma. xxx

 

LINKS:

• Artist Amanda Clark’s Etsy store
• Book; Celebrating the Great Mother: A Handbook of Earth-Honoring Activities for Parents and Children by Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw