Summer of Love

Day 172

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Today is a day of rare cosmic coincidence – the full ‘Strawberry Moon’ meets the Summer Solstice. Of course, we know there are no coincidences. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, with approximately 17 hours of daylight, and it also marks the ancient middle of summer.

Most cultures of the Northern Hemisphere mark the June solstice in some ritualised manner and from time immemorial people have acknowledged the rising of the sun on this day. Over the centuries, the summer solstice has inspired many festivals and midsummer celebrations involving bonfires, picnics, singing, watching the sun rise and Maypole dancing. Many towns and villages across Britain still mark the day. At Stonehenge, the heelstone marks the midsummer sunrise as seen from the centre of the stone circle.

I’ve had a few “coincidences” of my own around this event. While I was in the middle of writing a 12-day series to honor my father last week, I found out about this once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and thought it was a perfect epilogue to the tribute because it was believed that midsummer day holds a special power:

Midsummer’s eve was believed to be a time when the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest, and when fairies were thought to be at their most powerful.

The veil between this world and the next is thinnest on the heals of the anniversary of the day my father returned to the next world. Coincidence? I think not. Synchronicity.

Not only is it the most powerful day of the year for the Sun, but tonight’s Full Moon is occurring at the same time. It’s also the only night in the month when the moon is in the sky all evening long, and it’s a blue moon. Despite being called a “Strawberry Moon”, the moon will not appear pink or red – the label was coined by the Algonquin tribes who believed June’s full moon signaled the beginning of the strawberry picking season.

Having a full moon land smack on the solstice is a truly rare event, according to astronomer Bob Berman of Farmer’s Almanac. “By landing exactly on the solstice, this Full Moon doesn’t just rise as the Sun sets but is opposite the Sun in all other ways too. The Sun gets super high so this Moon must be super-low. This forces its light through thicker air, which also tends to be humid this time of year, and the combination typically makes it amber colored. This is the true Honey Moon.”

So, that’s all pretty cool on it’s own already. Now, I’ll add my own twist. Last night, I got some information about a potential romance on the horizon – it’s too early to comment, so that’s all I’ll say for now, but that’s the part that matters for today’s post anyway.

I watched the movie How to Be Single over the weekend, and one of the songs from the film stuck in my head. I listened to it last night before I went to bed, and I’ve been listening to it ad nauseam all day today. I planned to use it as today’s blog beats, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the theme of this post; today’s astronomical event. So I thought.

Then, I started to write this post, and when I added a tag for “honey moon”, it flagged another tag about honey. I went to the post, and found that it was one of my earlier posts, from day 4 in fact, and I had forgotten that I quoted one of my dad’s sayings in it. So, of course, I added it to Daddy’s Pearls. Synchronicity.

Next, I stumbled upon today’s quote from the Great Gatsby about the summer solstice! How many times do you find a quote about the summer solstice, let alone in a classic piece of literature that’s all about the Law of Attraction? Exactly never. Synchronicity.

As I did a bit more research, I found out this coming together of the summer solstice and strawberry moon hasn’t happened since June 22, 1967; the summer that’s known as the “Summer of Love”. Then, I learned that the song is from 1967, and it’s about love. Synchronicity.

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Blog Beats: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli

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I’m not sure what all these “coincidences” mean, but I can tell you that as the sun sinks beneath the horizon on the longest day of the year tonight, and the moonlight is at it’s brightest, it will be worth looking up. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait another 46 years before you can see the full moon on the summer solstice because it won’t occur again until June 21, 2062. If you can’t get out, Slooh.com is streaming the rare event live.

Enjoy nature’s magnificence, it’s almost too good to be true…who knows, maybe it’s life beginning over again with this summer (of love)!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!