Happy Summer Solstice Everyone!!!!!!!

"Solstice" is derived from two Latin words: "sol" meaning sun, and "sistere," to cause to stand still. This is because, as the summer solstice approaches, the noonday sun rises higher and higher in the sky on each successive day. On the day of the solstice, it rises an imperceptible amount, compared to the day before. In this sense, it "stands still."


The mosaic table top is the one I made for our Summer Solstice celebration the first year we moved to this charming town!:) It is too dangerous now with minimoo ( the yellow glass is rough and protruding) so we took off the top and we are hanging it on a garden wall for now instead.

Building on the Solstice

Ancient buildings have long reflected people's fascination with the sun. Stonehenge is perhaps the best known of these stone structures. Another prehistoric stone building, in Newgrange, Ireland, and dating from about 3,300 BCE, allows sunlight to penetrate to the back of the cairn only at sunrise on the winter solstice. The neolithic cairn at Maeshowe on the Orkney Islands lets in the setting sun on the same day. And the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, one of 40 or more similar "wheels" found in the Rocky Mountains, serves a similar astronomical function.

Links for some cool celebrations and calendars:


Stonehenge has some cool events on the solstice's and Equinoxes' , we went midsummer about four years ago and it was so amazing. But plan on going again for one of the events:


http://www.new-age.co.uk/


http://gouk.about.com/od/whatsoninma1/qt/summersolstice.htm


Ins the Santa Barbara area today in Californian:
http://www.solsticeparade.com/


Calendar :
http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/2010.html


ok back to work for me, I will celebrate in my garden at dusk:)