The word “solstice” means ‘the Sun stands still’, as it reaches the furthest point on its journey along the horizon.  If you’ve never tracked where the Sun rises each morning along the horizon, and noticed how that point changes with the seasons, getting progressively further north or south, then I really invite you to do so!  This is the origin of the ancient standing stones, finding these alignments and tracking them over the course of a year (and much more besides, like predicting eclipses, but that’s another story!).

The June solstice is the furthest north that the Sun rises, which is mid-summer in the northern hemisphere, and mid-winter in the southern hemisphere.

And guess what? On that day, the Sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer – that’s how the Tropics got their name, because the solstice is by definition the moment the Sun moves into the tropical zodiac sign of Cancer.  This solstice is also known as the Cancer Ingress, meaning the moment that the Sun moves into the sign of Cancer.

The June solstice is the longest day of summer (northern hemisphere), or the shortest day of winter (southern hemisphere), and after this, the days get shorter (northern hemisphere) or longer (southern hemisphere) as we move towards the September Equinox where day and night come into balance and are equal once more.

The solstice is the real turning point of the year, and was always celebrated in ancient times, often with bonfires and dancing.  Plants especially respond to the change in the length of days, often only germinating either before or after the solstice.  If we were more in tune with Nature, ie without artificial light, we’d respond a lot more obviously too!

The solstice is exact on Fri 21 June 2024 at 6.50 am Queensland time (AEST), the previous day in Europe & the Americas (Remember a lot of what you see on social media is in US time zones).

Happy Solstice celebrations! 

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