Dana Dittmar
By DANA DITTMAR
CEO, SCC Chamber
Today (Wednesday, June 21) is my favorite day of the year. For those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere of our beautiful planet, it is summer solstice, one of the two longest days of the year. Physically we are experiencing more light, and since the beginning of time, our ancestors have marked the day with rituals and celebrations. As you know, there are thousands of ancient sites created around the solstice and equinox that were built to honor our connection to the sun as the source of light. It has always been the high holy day for priestesses and goddesses.
It is a time of celebrating. Let’s do something symbolic to honor this day. In doing so we are not merely reviving something of the past but rather tapping into something that is eternal. I’ve gathered some “magical ideas” to connect with the summer solstice.
Celebrate the outer and inner fire in you by playing drums, dancing and celebrating with your loved ones. If you want to get more ritualistic, gather some fresh herbs like vervain, lavender, St. John’s wort or whatever is local and throw them into a pot of hot water with your deepest wishes.
For a more personal celebration, make a little altar of light and gratitude by lighting a candle (or several) and decorate it/them with summer flowers and tangerines. If you leave the tangerines outside in the sun, they will soak up the sun’s energy and you can eat them later. Also, you can stick a candle into an orange and make a beautiful candleholder.
For a super fun idea, make or buy a sun-shaped piñata and fill it with yellow flower petals and gold coins. Blindfold your guests to hit it.
Or, better yet, release your inner goddess by going to the Sun City Center Chamber of Commerce at 3 p.m. today (June 21) for their ladies’ pop-up market. Latitudes will be providing appetizers and Southshore Uncorked will be performing a wine-tasting. Massage therapist Connie Larkin will be performing mini massages and A Caring Touch will be offering hot paraffin wax treatments. Retailers will be on hand with apparel by Papaya Tree Imports, Touchstone jewelry, Rodan and Fields skin care, Dooney & Bourke handbags, martini and wine mixes, soaps, scrubs and much more. They’ll be there until around 6:30 p.m. so go by and celebrate the goddess in you with some of your favorite ladies.
All are creative ideas, but I think I’ll be at the chamber celebrating my inner goddess with my girlfriends. Oh yeah.
