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Litha Activities
- Put a ring of flowers around your cauldron.
- Hang a bundle of fresh herbs out to dry.
- Litha is a time for healing of all kinds, and protection rituals.
- Make a Wicker Man and burn him in your bonfire.
- Decorate your altar with Rose flowers.
- Leave out milk and honey as an offering to the Fae folk.
- Make a charm to hang around your neck with a seashell.
- Have an outdoor breakfast picnic to welcome the Solstice.
- Stay up and watch the sun come up on the longest day of the year, or watch the sun come down.
- Take a picture of the sun at sunrise and sunset.
- Try a fire divination, stare into the coals of your bonfire as it settles, or look for forms in the leaping flames.
- Create a ritual to bring healing and love to Mother Earth.
- Make protection amulets for friends and family, dispose of last year’s Litha bonfire.
- Light a white candle and place it in front of a mirror. Say your own Litha prayer over it, and then let it burn out.
- Burn the remnants of your Yule Tree in the bonfire to burn away bad luck.
- Jump the balefire or cauldron.
- Hang a bundle of fresh herbs out to dry and use them to spice up a Litha feast of cooked summer vegetables
- * Offer a gift of lavender to the Gods in a bonfire.
- Make staffs, dream pillows, or a witches’ ladder.
- Go bird watching. Take a guidebook, so you will know what you are looking at. The birds may bless you with a feather.
Litha Recipies
Deity’s Portfolio
- Division: Minor Sabbat
- Other Names: Summer Solstice, Midsummer, Alban Hefin, Sun Blessing, Gathering Day, Whit Sunday, Feill-Sheathain, Whitsuntide, Vestalia, Thing-tide, St. John’s Day.
- Southern Hemisphere Date: Dec 20-23
- Northern Hemisphere Date: June 21
- Associated Holiday: Feast of John the Baptist
- Associated Deities: Mother Earth, Father Sun, and the fairy people
- Associated Herbs: Rose, lavender, St John’s Wort, chamomile
- Associated Stones: Emerald, Jade, Amethyst, opal, quartz, lapis lazuli, malachite, tiger’s eye, and diamonds.
- Symbols of Litha: Fire, The Sun, Sunflowers love amulets Blades, Mistletoe, Seashells, Oak Trees, Balefires, Sun Wheels, and Fairies.
- Foods of Litha: Garden fresh fruits and vegetables such as lemons and oranges.
- Drinks of Litha: Wine, Lemonade, Meade, Ales, Herbal Teas, and fresh fruit juice of any kind
- Incense of Litha: Frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood, lemon, pine, jasmine, rose, lotus, or wysteria.
- Ritual Oils: Heliotrope, Cinnamon, Sandalwood, Lavender, Orange, All Mint Oils, Lemon, Saffron
- Colors: of Litha: White, red, maize yellow or golden yellow, green, blue, and tan.
- Taboos: Giving Away Fire, Sleeping Away from Home, Neglecting Animals.
- Plants: Oak, Mistletoe, Frankincense, Lemon, Sandalwood, Heliotrope, Copal, Saffron, Galangal, Laurel, Ylang-Ylang
- Element: Fire
- Activities: All kinds of magic, Create protective amulets, dry herbs
- Animals: Robin/Wren, Summer Birds, Horses, Cattle
- Mythical Creatures: Satyrs, fairies, Firebird, Dragon, Thunderbird, Manticore
- Celebration of: The Goddess is pregnant with the God.