“To understand spirit, understand self—Know Thyself.” JC
The Summer Solstice, the traditional day of the Sun, is a perfect time of celebration and a time to honor and bless the “Sun behind the sun” and Light.
The Sun behind the sun (the Absolute, the Divine, the All, the Great Mystery/Spirit, the One) is a symbol and expression of great spiritual understanding and knowledge. How perfect this is as the summer solstice was also known as the time of spiritual understanding.
In astrology the sun is considered the king of the planets. According to the Vedic understanding, the sun is an expression of God. This planet is associated with the soul or self, leadership, happiness, success, self-realization, and spiritual enlightenment.
Light may be seen as a symbol of the Divine—Eternal Light. This is the Divine Light/Spark/Fire. Divine light permeates all things: space, humans, trees, stones, animals, even the most insignificant. We cannot see the Divine, but we become aware of Divine’s presence when we see the beauty of the world, when we look into the eyes of a baby, and when we experience love of others, nature, and all things of the earth.
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The world solstice comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).
In ancient Greece, the summer solstice marked the start of a new year and the month-long countdown to the Olympics. In ancient Egypt, the summer solstice represented the coming of the brightest star, Sirius. Not long after, the Nile would begin to flood its banks, marking a season of abundance from the land. The Egyptians believed Sirius was responsible for the floods and considered it the start of a new year.
Solstices are the extreme points as the Earth’s axis tilts toward or away from the sun when days and nights are longest or shortest. The life giving Sun is celebrated all over the world with various traditions, like fire festivals, singing songs, telling tales, and dancing until the sun sets. And in the Baltic’s, lighting a bonfire and jumping over it. Not for the faint of heart.
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If we delve into Mesoamerican knowledge, we discover the hummingbirds connection to the solstices. The hummingbird can fly forwards, stop and hover, and fly backwards, too. The sun exhibits the same behavior through the ecliptic: it hovers at the summer solstice, “flies backward” until it stops and hovers at the winter solstice, and then “flies forward” until it returns once more to the summer solstice.
To the Maya, the Milky Way was a great celestial reptile which extended across the sky. His body represented the sky, from which the other sky deities, the stars, were suspended. His body bears the symbols of the sun, moon, Venus, and other celestial bodies. This beast had two heads.
The front head, to the left, signifies the summer solstice when the sun, when located in the Milky Way, is near the Pleiades. This head faced east and was associated with the rising sun, the Morning Star (Venus) and life. The rear head (on the right) marked the place where the Milky Way crossed the ecliptic in Scorpius or Sagittarius at the time the sun was at the winter solstice. The head facing west, symbolized the setting sun, the evening Star (Venus) and death. It was especially significant when a planet crossed the Milky Way as it traveled along the ecliptic. Maya glyphs show that Maya kings carried a representation of the Milky Way god in their arms, known as the double-headed serpent bar.
The Mayas constructed many of their sacred cities like Tulum, Chichén Itzá, and Uxmal with the solstices and equinoxes in mind. You will find that the Mayan observatories and temples were positioned specifically to observe the movements of the sun. A clear example of this can be found at Chichén Itzá. The main pyramid at Chichén Itzá, known as the Temple of Kukulkán, is constructed in such a way that during the Summer Solstice the sun casts perfect shadows on the south and west sides so that it looks to be split in two. The Spring Equinox that falls around March 21st at Chichén Itzá is even more impressive. The shadows cast by the sun look like the outline of a snake descending the steps of the pyramid.
Teotihuacán, City of Water – City of Fire, known as “the city where one becomes a god,” is the birthplace of the Fifth Sun and the home of the prophet Quetzalcóatl and his religion. In recognition of this, Teotihuacán’s Temple of the Sun was built over a sacred cave symbolizing birth and was shaped like a four-leafed clover. Temple of the Sun was oriented to the sun’s passage at the Summer Solstice.