Pagan Festivals: Summer Solstice and the magic of Midsummer meetings

Midsummer and the time of the Summer Solstice is an ideal time to get out and about and to meet people and even when the weather isn’t exactly a “flaming June” it is still likely to be warm and the hours of daylight are at their maximum! An outdoor festival or gathering is a marvellous place to meet friends old and new and for all sorts of interesting discoveries.

Every year in the UK, thousands of people flock to Stonehenge to witness and celebrate the Summer Solstice dawn. This always makes the national and international news. Such is the appeal of outdoor festivities at these ancient stones at this magical time of year!

Midsummer really is when Avebury too is at its busiest. So many people congregate there drawn by the idea of the magic of the midsummer celebrations. The usually quiet streets of this little village become filled with visitors, many of whom are Pagans and Druids all decked out in their colourful robes and mystical attire.

I was once at Avebury for Summer Solstice to take part in the Free Gorsedd of the Bards of Caer Abiri, and any other celebrations that were underway. I had been up all night with a party of friends and as the dawn arose I was walking on the circular earthwork that goes around the main stones. The night had been a warm one, too warm for sleeping. I was feeling energised and restless, but in a very good way.

I could see a dawn ceremony circle taking place down below and just had the feeling that I should join them. I left my companion up on the bank and hurried down to get involved in what was going on. I simply had the urge to go and do this. I was going with my feelings at the time.

The circle was being led by a lady called Amma-Ra, whom I was to learn was a follower of the 13 Moon calendar and the Mayan system, which was given to the Mayans by the Sky People back in the 3^rd Century.

I took my place in the circle and was welcomed. Most of the ceremony was the usual sort of thing, calling upon the spirits of the 4 quarters, joining hands and chanting, talking stick and so on, and I was very impressed with how well organised it all seemed.

I wasn’t willing to take part in everything however, and I remember one part where the celebrants were doing some invocation calling upon some spirit or deity which sounded like “Key” or “Keen”. I was not familiar with this and am not happy with invoking beings and forces I know nothing of!

Anyway, eventually the circle was due to close and Amma-Ra asked that everyone present should turn to the person next to them and give them a big hug. She left her place in the centre and joined the circle and I was very pleased to find that the person next to me was now Amma-Ra. We hugged and chatted briefly and exchanged contact details.

I told this story to C.J. Stone, my author friend, and he laughed and wrote it up in his bookThe Last of the Hippies , making the humorous comment that he thought it was far too much of a coincidence that I had joined a circle at random and at the close of the circle ended up next to the person leading it, who turned out to be a most attractive lady and that I had given her a hug.

“You fancied her, didn’t you, Steve?” C.J. asked of me, and whilst I admitted that this was true I went on to try to assure him that my intentions on being involved in the circle were for far more spiritual reasons!

Anyway, I corresponded with Amma-Ra and found out a lot more about the Mayan system and I learnt that my “Galactic signature” is “Red Electric Earth,” that I was born in the “Wavespell of the Blue Eagle” and that I am guided by the “Power of the Dragon.”

And I learnt to count in Mayan too. All of this was some of the fascinating stuff that I learned from a chance encounter, a midsummer magical meeting!