When we join our personal transformation to the potent times in Nature’s cycle, we can more easily expand our own evolutionary growth. Just as the Earth supports an acorn becoming an oak, we are supported in our individual human development when we connect to the energies of Nature, especially during seasonal points of power like Midsummer.

Summer heat is at its peak during the ancient Midsummer Celtic festival of Lugh, which honors the power of the sun and harvest bounty of Mother Earth. This was a time of feasting, marriages and market fairs and usually was held the first two-three weeks of August.

My friends and I reclaimed and recreated this festival and made it more inwardly meaningful by holding a special fire ceremony on Aug. 7th at the Yoga retreat where I was staying on Vancouver Island. We symbolically burned away obstacles and old patterns by listing them on slips of paper and tossing them into the fire. Afterwards, we welcomed in creative and healing energies for ourselves and our home planet. Doing this simple ritual at the high point of summer felt like passing through a portal of illumination and transformation. It seems to have taken effect for all of us who participated and was definitely a powerful moment of Midsummer Magic.