Our 4th Litha in this house and the first one I didn’t quite awaken at sunrise for. I tried, but I was just too tired. But I was greeted by a cloudless sky when I did rise about 4 hours after.

It hasn’t yet broken 70 degrees Fahrenheit here, so it was a breezy 62-65 for the solstice and that was comfortable enough to go with some long sleeves and sandals. I spent the morning on the deck admiring my garden and the plants which should soon crawl up the trellis I made.

Lucy is a part of every sabbat, but Litha is one of her favourites because she gets to spend pretty much the whole day outside with us. I got plenty of pictures of her in full bark mode.

The cat, on the other hand, was asleep the entire day. He only perked up after sunset and began his tradition of knocking things over for fun.

On Beltane, I asked my family if they would be so kind as to plan the next celebration. Litha is my favourite of the sabbats and, while I enjoy planning a great day for everyone, for once I wanted to just get to have a relaxing and fun day set out for me.

They did a wonderful job. For activities, we drew portraits of the sun and made wooden ships to burn our wishes for the coming year and send them to the universe. We had a wonderful fire-cooked meal of potatoes, black bean and quinoa cutlets, and the greatest mushroom hummus that exists in the world.

And, of course, there were plenty of walks around the garden to see all of the new blossoming or wilting flowers. I so love to spend time in the garden and I’m so happy to see that all the plants are happy and healthy.

I always adore the summer solstice: the longest day of the year. It makes me happy to have long days and short boughts of darkness. Even though I am always drawn to night and have always been a “night owl.” These days actually give me sunlight to enjoy. Luckily we had the sun all day this year.

Onwards to the harvest festivals and the dark half of the year. Welcome to the Holly King. Though, I swear, most of my seedlings are still just babies! I guess July will be big for them!