solstice feelings
golden hour in the gilded age
I am having solstice feelings.
Maybe you are too.
There is incoming brilliance here, as the new season approaches, but contextually even the “good” feels poignant, more bitter than sweet against the backdrop of global events. The first part of 2026 was hard, it took most of us a lot to get here – to this halfway point in this fast year.
It is a bright, yet deep set of feelings running through my consciousness, at this - either the longest day or the longest night (depending where on earth you are).
Solstices are many things to many people. I think the simplest (and most profound) way to know their power is to understand them as moments of luminous clarity - all the marbles are to one side (daylight) or the other (night). We can then see solstices as heightened moments of peak Yang (action) energy or peak Yin (rest) energy. The summer solstice being the maximum masculine (Yang) and the winter solstice is maximum feminine (Yin)*. So the story goes that together, in their polarity, these two energies (each holding a dot of the other) combine to create all we know.
Whether we are in the southern hemisphere or the northern, the solstice is either a maximum Yang or maximum Yin check-in at the halfway point of the year. And the equinoxes of course are all about the mixing and balancing and harmonizing those polar-opposite energies. The structure of the seasons offers a time and space for everything from seed planting to fallow fields. When we work consciously with these seasonal transitions, each year itself becomes its own work of art.
All four seasonal portals create a beautiful, dancing rhythmic structure for magic and creativity.
Another practice I love at the turn of the seasons, is to feel the flow of time itself flowing through our open hands.
We can do it now, if we want -
1. turn the right hand palm up to receive the new season
2. turn the left hand down to release the old season
3. imagine the flow of time as an infinite ribbon or river
4. feel the new season flowing into and through the upturned palm
5. feel the old season being released from the palm facing the earth
6. feel the flow of the breath and notice how it affects the infinite ribbon or river of time running through our hands
Speaking of time, I love Solstices (and Equinoxes) for great, time-based readings (i.e. past, present, future readings, this season, next season, the larger view, readings, etc).
Here is the spread I am working with at this Solstice – it will work regardless of your hemisphere. Feel free to enjoy it as is or adapt to your needs and solstice celebrations.
CARD 1 - information and symbols relating to the first half of 2026 (what has already happened)
CARD 2 - information and symbols relating to the second half of 2026 (what is on the horizon)
CARD 3 - information and symbols relating to this present moment (the solstice)
CARD 4 - information and symbols relating to energies to release
CARD 5 - information and symbols relating to energies to call in
CARD 6 - wild card! information and symbols that are good to know at this time
This is an interesting spread to take at face value, and then start to see the links between say - the first part of 2026 (card 1) and what we should release (card 4). Also interesting to note the “advice” that the call in position (card 5) has for the second half of 2026 position (card 2).
We all know we are in a fire horse year – and many of us sense we are now galloping into a drier, hotter terrain…
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Thank you for sharing internet space with me <3
xo Jess