Surviving Litha

               Hold on to your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen as this is a long ride. This is now my 4^th pagan holiday I have chosen to observe and learn about and see how this practice influences my inner journey and growth for my life.  This is the first time I am writing and posting this not on the day of the actual holiday but rather the following day.  The why behind this is quite significant in its own way.  But first about Litha as it’s written in the research I have done.

                Litha is also referred to as midsummer or the summer solstice. It occurs between June 20^th and June 23^rd each year and marks the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere.  It’s recognized for its fertile energy as it is a time where new life is rapidly growing in the environment around us. The seeds have already been sown and are beginning to grow in abundance before Harvest. The holiday is meant to honor the sun, abundance, and the first day of summer the time of sun and light.

Some common ways of celebrating Litha in modern times are:

• to make floral wreaths for your front door.
• Host a bonfire and potluck for your family and friends.
• Gather and dry herbs to use throughout the coming year.
• Take time to meditate and give thanks for the blessings you have in your life.
• Create an invisibility amulet from seeds of ferns gathered on midsummer eve.
• Build a faerie house in the words to invite goodwill into your life.

So, what about my personal journey with the celebration of Litha.  Litha was probably to me personally the hardest to embark on.  As with the other celebrations, the prep for the next began the day after the Last holiday celebrated.  I began moving into the next energy at the end of Beltane.  This energy felt to me personally like a lot of Solar Plexus work.  My background in massage therapy and the wonderful mentors I have had in my mixed match education up to this point has taught me a lot about eastern theory practices.  The solar plexus is the “I do” part of who you are.  How are you showing up what actions and behaviors are seen in your present world.  It is also a connection to our gut health.  What are we eating?  What do our hormones look like?  What moods are we showing up in.  Are we grounded and present and aware of these things.  Are we in control of how we are showing up.  Does our physical reality match who we think we are or who we are asking to be.  As someone who has long dissociated into her mind and imagination to escape reality in times where it was too large for me to understand staying present in who I want to be, balancing my emotions and hormones, engaging in a present and grounded manner, and so on and so forth has always been a challenge for me personally.  It’s no surprise that Solar plexus work was showing up at this time as it is often associated with the sun and the sun’s energies.  Personally, Litha felt like a long deep dive into who I truly am.  I was called to examine my health and eating habits, my hormone imbalances and irrational mood swings, my insecurities and old narratives that held me back from seeing who I truly am.  I was also called at this time to really look at my daily routines and habits, what was focusing on and engaging in and how it was influencing me.  I even found myself visiting the doctor a few times for some assistance in looking at my long neglected physical health and unhealthy habits.  The raw real emotional vulnerability I felt as my illusions and old ways were being called to the surface and rubbed in my face.  I saw at this time how my hormones were so out of control that my emotions were just happening to me and spiraling out onto the ones I love.  It felt like my fragile ego was being constantly attacked, forced to look at all the stuff I hate most about my body the stuff I tried so hard to pretend wasn’t true and there.  At first this felt unfair and like a punishment. 

        I was doing everything I thought I should do and wasn’t feeling the bliss I thought I would.  The wonderful results I had seen celebrating the other holidays just weren’t there.  I thought it perhaps was all an illusion.   Yesterday on the actual day of the summer solstice I woke up miserable, tired, moody.  I yelled too much at my children because I was overwhelmed.  The deadline approaching for my internship for school and yet still have no mentor.   My goals weren’t coming true, all that I manifested wasn’t helping me be a better version of myself.  I was overwhelmed still, fatigued still, moody still.  I wasn’t showing up in better vibrations why not?  After all I honored my end of the deal for Litha, I built a beautiful garden of recycled resources and planted fresh vegetables that I tend daily.  I visited many local farmers markets and chose my favorite flowers.  I built a fairy garden that makes me smile from ear to ear when I look at it.  I dried beautiful yellow rose petals I received from my fiancée and children for Mother’s Day as well as dried some perennials I was gifted from his grandmother.  I built the altar and meditated almost daily. I was working on my emotional control and hormones and communicating better than I have ever before.  I was more patient and loving and nurturing to my children and pets at this time.  I was going to the beach and grounding my energy.  I was building my career goals working hard at my classes even when I felt too tired to want to at the end of a long day with twin toddlers with an unearthly amount of energy and curiosity that far surpasses my own.  I was even taking steps to build my home and environment through little projects that felt truer to me and who I was.  Letting myself paint my home and decorate outside what society thinks beautiful and make it an expression of who I am make it creative and imaginative and in alignment with the energy I want to show up in.  I was taking vitamins regularly and looking at the food I was eating.  I was learning how to just see my body for what it is even if it is not what I want it to be in my head I can still accept it for what it is.  I can learn to reconnect with it. I was doing ecstatic dance and yoga for more than an hour without even noticing what would typically drain me dry was reconnecting me to my body.  I was doing the practices, the celebrations, making all the right choices. So why then did I feel so shitty on the day my blessings should’ve come? Why on Litha did I feel I was so ungrounded, unsafe, chaotic, and well honestly like the version of myself I had once been rather than who I was trying to create in doing all this why was I
 back tracking.  Is this not as real as I had hoped.  Is this work all for nothing.  To top the cherry on the sundae my father the man who raised me by choice was hurting as his father was nearing the end of his life.  My grandfather passed away last night.  Why did it feel like all my work in trying to heal my soul was for not and I had failed.  I didn’t want to write this last night because I didn’t feel blessed, healed, or appreciative of the growth and abundance that the sun was blessing me with.  In fact, I was quite pissed off that despite all my efforts the only light I got was a giant light that reflected that no matter how far I’ve come I’m still fighting the same.  My moods are unstable I woke up pissy and was meaner to people I loved because I couldn’t tolerate my own over stimulation.  I was still in my head thinking way too much about my past shortcomings.  I even began smoking again this time because I felt truly like tobacco and that connection, I’ve always had to use it as a tool to ground me in times of change and stress.  I had completely morphed back into my old ways I wasn’t taking steps to being better at all.  I was simply saying this is what I am and what I want to be, but I can only keep up that pretense for so long I will always revert to this habitual ways and habits that are who I am no matter how hard I try to escape so why try.  So honestly the last thing I wanted to do was write this.  I wanted to not write this at all to avoid it entirely and shut down the series and never open it again. 

        Upon waking up this morning, however, still tired, and moody and overreacting over stimulated a part of me knew when it came time to write this during the twin’s nap, I was going to have a lot to say.  I sat on the swing outside with my feet planted in the grass and just listening to all the shit up in my head the good the bad alike.  It slowly became so clear this one didn’t feel light and easy to me not as a punishment but as just as I referred to it a light.  Shining a light on patterns, behaviors, actions, habits, routines, ego, and other solar plexus energy that was within me that wasn’t in alignment to what I was desiring. That I tried to hide and run from instead of seeing and acknowledging as a way of showing me what I was and what I am growing past.  The ways in which I was acting and showing up weren’t true to my narrative I had for my life, and they weren’t who I am anymore and that’s why they felt so uncomfortable with me.  I was being shown them not to be shown my failures and flaws as my ego was reading it but rather to show what I need to release and let go of. The reality of what I was needs to be accepted to not feel shame for it.  It is a part of who I was and therefore who I am.   I was seeing these things not as an assault from my spirit team but rather as a means I am saying these actions and behaviors don’t align with your goals.  Taking these steps are only going to manifest more of the same.  So, despite how familiar and comfortable they feel these actions that make you feel grounded and safe the habits you fall into so effortlessly and easily are only there as a result of familiarity and the human beings desire to be in what is known and that’s why you fall back onto them.  The change and growth of bettering myself and my daily routines and habits feels so scary and uncomfortable because it isn’t easy or natural but because it isn’t what I have always done I don’t know YET with yet being the key word of the month what these new patterns will bring and that is scary it tells my wounded ego that I should be anxious because I don’t have the answers but the answers of the past are the same ones I have already learn and its time to stop asking the same questions and expecting different answers.              

        As an ACE which is what I refer to myself and others who experienced high amounts of insecurity and trauma within childhood we adapt these patterns because of our experiences and coping mechanisms.  They develop with the purpose of making us feel safe and provide some sort of comfort.  We must strive that much harder to be what comes so easily to those who grew up with their needs met.  In mental health which I am studying currently to be a social worker this is explained by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  The base level needs the largest on the pyramid are used to depict the needs and amount of influence much like the largest part of the food pyramid you need the most of though flawed due to lack of updating and individuality.  The base level of Maslow’s pyramid is held by the physiological needs such as the needs that are biologically driven such as air, water, and shelter.  They continue with the emotional needs of security and sense of belonging ironically the colors and needs also correlate with the eastern theory chakra symptom of spiritual practices as well.  When our base level needs are not meant then living in our purpose and the vibration of who we truly are is almost impossible.  It’s hard to look at how you show up and where your health and hormones are at or how you are behaving when your time, energy, and attention is so focused on a place to live and something to eat.  As an ACE( which I named after the survey utilized in mental health to calculate childhood trauma and probability of success )when our basic needs aren’t meant we don’t feel safe, secure, loved, nourished, and protected we cope by escaping reality into our minds giving our minds the power to create whatever reality feels better, more stable, and more comfortable for what energy compacity you are able to give it.  However, like all things in life this needs to be balanced.  If we escape too far our ego will protect us from ourselves as well.  It will protect us from seeing the truth of how things are because it doesn’t align.  We can be living in a reality that simply doesn’t truly exist, afraid to see what is there because why? because it’s painful.  Nothing anyone has ever done to me has ever amounted to the same hate and disgust I feel for myself when I am not living in who I know I am meant to be.  When these toxic patterns and big emotions pop up, I ignore them or worse I tell myself that I can’t be anything different and will always revert to this and I am destined to experience nothing but the same. When I was not a good person or mother, I was making excuses to make myself feel better rather than seeing my disgust for my actions as a misalignment that needed awareness to be addressed.  I could see this and not make it mean anything about me, it doesn’t mean I have to make the same choices and dissociate from them as I am making them. 

        This morning I could see this wasn’t a punishment it was a sign of what to work towards, of what to leave behind to go towards this new energy I was desperately wanting to create.  It was to show me that even though these patterns were present and a part of me they did not make up the bulk of me.  The slip back did not mean that I hadn’t made any progress.  Since 2020 when I found myself in the peak of my mental breakdown or spiritual awakening whatever terminology its all the same, I vowed to keep pushing learning and growing.  Despite these old patterns and the fact that I wasn’t at my destination yet.  I was still making the changes, taking the steps, listening to the input, embracing the good with the bad of life, and continuing to push myself outside of the comfortable and what I have always done.  These last few days aside I was still making positive changes I was taking my children places and creating memories with them, I was losing my temper less often, I was communicating with emotional calmness more than I ever had, I was planting and nourishing life outside myself, I was working on my health, working on my career.  I was doing all the things.  I wasn’t everywhere I wanted to be, and the light shining down on all the work that still needed to be done was painfully clear, but I don’t have to accept that as me or as a flaw or character defect.  I can see it as what it truly is which is actions and behaviors that my ego mind made a comfortable reality to make myself more equip to handle the burdens of a reality that wasn’t always so kind and gentle to me.  The world is a cruel place full of ego, hate, fear, insecurity, jealousy, and low vibration everyday we make choices whether conscious or unconscious that impact not only ourselves but those we engage with every day.  We are all just out here trying to understand how we show up and why we continue to show up in these ways.  However, a lot of us are trying to do it while ignoring those parts of ourselves that aren’t perfect.  We don’t want to show our shortcomings and vulnerabilities in life. Not even to ourselves. 

We don’t want to say I want to I want to be a person who wakes up rested everyday sets my intentions for the day, says what I am grateful for, takes my vitamins, eats healthy, meditates, takes care of myself and dresses myself the way I want and is comfortable for me.  I am a patient loving mother who makes a healthy breakfast for her children and starts their day with love and attention.  I teach them to take care of their appearance and show up as their best selves.  I am spiritual but with a grounded sense of reality and a love for science and evidence-based exploration of the mental world around us.  I am confident and love to express who I am.  I am social and engaging with many people who align with what I offer.  I love to learn and eat healthy.  I love to explore and be in nature.  I love to hear people’s stories and guide them in ways I’m perfectly equipped and capable of guiding them. These are all true things.  They are all things that I think I was meant to be that truly are at the heart of who I am internally, but they also aren’t who I show up as every day…. YET.  Some days I can’t get out of bed, I’m groggy and short tempered, somedays I’m overstimulated and stress out about my school and not finding an internship to finish off an education I worked hard at, sometimes my body is physically begging for rest, sometimes I need isolation from people because I am overwhelmed trying to find out who I am enough without adding others opinions that I have a tendency to value over my own due to old coping mechanisms.  Somedays I am all flaws and errors and that’s perfectly okay.  It’s okay to see them look at them and shine a light on them why are they there? What is causing them?  So, I can keep making different choices so I can see in the present time that they don’t align to my goals, and they can’t come with me.    

It’s almost my birthday, another cycle around the sun and a complete cycle of soul evaluation for me and this time I need to be painfully aware of what isn’t a part of my next cycle what I won’t take with me.  I am so grateful today even for the struggles, the emotions, and all the bullshit as I am continuing to become more and more everyday the true version of myself while uncomfortable and anxiety inducing, I am choosing to continue to take these steps. To create my own narrative.  I am not who I was.  I make conscious decisions in the present.  I am grounded and growing.  I am saying what I do and who I show up as in the world.  I am telling myself I am enough, and I have enough.  I deserve to break free of the chains and curses of my lineage and ascend beyond these ways to enter new, dark, unknown territory.  I have a light that guides me to building better actions and habits.  The summer solstice to me is being grateful for all the lessons and blessings I have received in this time.  Honoring my own growth from the seeds that I planted to change these things that don’t align and giving myself the nutrients and resources to continue to grow as an individual.  To talk a hold of my own energy and use it to show up for myself and my world in the ways I choose to not the ways that were given to me. If I only choose to show up as myself for myself, I literally can not show up as anything else.  When I show up in the ways that I want I literally can not be anything other than what I want to be.  I just need to give myself the patience I give the plants in my garden to harvest into what I must become.  Just as a sunflower seed will always become a sunflower.   By the way a seed was dropped off to my garden to grow by a little birdy if that isn’t a Litha blessing telling me I am right where I need to be then I don’t know what is.  #incaseyougiveash*t I am not done growing just yet and that’s perfectly okay I am still in the path of finding my inner sunshine. May the sun bring blessings.