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White Wine in The Sun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNvZqpa-7Q

 

S2E22 TRANSCRIPT:----more----

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. 

Yucca: And I'm Yucca.

Mark: And it is time for Midsummer. It is the summer solstice coming up and we're going to talk about that today.

Yucca: Exactly. So. What it is to us in our particular bioregions and our particular practice. And just about it in general. 

Mark: Yeah. I mean, this is one of those holidays that doesn't actually exist in the over cultures calendar of holidays. The, the, the winter solstice is pretty well-represented by all of the various winter salts to see holidays that happen around that time. But with the exception of the American Memorial day, we don't really have anything that 

Yucca: Cool. 4th of July, sort of. 

Mark: Yeah. Okay. 

Yucca: Yeah, I think 4th of July.

know it's a little bit later, but it's still kind of in that same time of year summary, holiday 

Mark: Yeah, enjoy, enjoy the long evenings. That kind of thing. Yeah. You're right 

Yucca: but it's still a stretch 

Mark: right. It's not 

Yucca: I mean, Christmas and winter solstice right there. Right. 

Mark: And it's not like in some European countries where Midsummer is a big deal and you have all kinds of traditions that go along with that.

Yucca: Who is, is it son, Juan they're in primarily Catholic countries. There is a St stay which involves a bonfire. On the solstice. And sometimes there's a tradition of the students burning their old papers and things like that at the end of the year to celebrate that the, that.

the semester, the year's over. 

Mark: Okay. I wasn't aware of that, but that's very interesting. Yes. I mean, this is another fire holiday very closely associated with building a big fire, which frankly I think is just an another excuse to build a big fire. I mean, people. People don't need much of an excuse to build a fire and have a big party around it.

But this is another one of those. So we're going to talk about how we conceptualize mid summer or the summer solstice what we call it, how we envision it in the cycle of the year, the wheel of the year and the various cycles that we track. How that may vary from bioregion to bio region what kinds of rituals we do in our practices and that we're aware of that other people might do and stuff like that.

So let's dive in.

Yucca: Yeah. So question number one. Is it actually mid-summer for you? 

Mark: Yes, 

Yucca: it is. Okay. 

Mark: It is, I consider the beginning of summer to be the Mayday holiday. And yeah, that's just so that the names Midsummer and mid-winter will otherwise they don't work.

Yucca: But in terms of, in your bioregion region, your climate, has it been summer for awhile? 

Mark: oh, yes. 

Yucca: Yeah. Okay. 

Mark: Yeah. For quite a while. And the, the transition in my region is very noticeable because all the Hills go from being green, to being gold, all the grasses die. And so, you know, you have this kind of golden brown color instead of the green of the winter growth. And that happens right around may day.

So, it begins right around may the eighth. So that's kind of the beginning of summer and it extends and it's completed. The Hills are completely brown except for the green Oak trees. By the time we get to the summer solstice. 

Yucca: Hmm. 

Mark: How about you?

Yucca: Well, definitely not. Mid-summer as in the mid point of summer for us, this is the beginning of summer. We, I live at a very high elevation, so dry, dry desert, but high desert. So 7,000 feet, I think that's a little over. 2100 meters somewhere in that range. So very high up. So really summer press doesn't begin until June to beginning of June is the beginning of summer feel.

The last week of may, may be may is one of those months that can really go either direction where it's literally freezing the night before. And the