What is Midsummer?

Midsummer, or the summer solstice, is the day each year when the sun is directly over a point on the earth which is closest to one of the poles. In the northern hemisphere, summer solstice is on or near June 21 - "Down Under" it's around December 22. In the temperate zones, it's the "longest day" of the year, the day when sunshine hours are longest and night is shortest. (At the equator, days and nights are 12 and 12 year-round; over the poles, there is 24 hour daylight for 6 months.)

Why Celebrate Midsummer?

Since ancient times summer solstice was set aside as a time for ritual and celebration by people throughout the world. Native Americans, ancient Druids, Incas of Peru, Egyptians, Chinese, and Africans are among the civilizations who have left artifacts which were designed to help determine the time of the solstice. While Christianity does not celebrate the solstice as such, June 24 (the solstice according to the Roman calendar) is designated the Feast of St. John the Baptist and is celebrated with bonfires, just as the solstice was celebrated in northern regions before Christianity was introduced.

With the advent of electric lights, central heat, and worldwide transport of fresh foodstuffs, along with general migration into cities, modern people often have lost sight of our intimacy with nature, its cycles and seasons. Yet though we may not consciously notice their progress, nonetheless as creatures of the earth we are affected in all aspects of our lives by the passage of the seasons. Our forebears, living close to nature, understood that.

As an agricultural event, the summer solstice is the day with the most sun, and is also the approximate mid-point of the growing season. In earlier times people celebrated the sun and also did rituals intended to influence mother nature and the gods to provide an abundant harvest. Always associated with fertility, Midsummer is a popular time for weddings. In earlier times people often leaped over the bonfires for fertility and for luck.

In the southern hemisphere, people are celebrating

The seasons are opposite in Australia, South America, southern Africa, and other lands south of the equator. What are our southern friends doing this season? Click here!

Celebration of Summer, Remembering of Winter

The Longest Day

Earth's Seasons through 2005