Litha 2014: Pagans welcome Summer Solstice

CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Antonia Blumberg (HuffingtonPost.com, June 21, 2014, AP)

The summer solstice arrives in the northern hemisphere on June 21 at 6:51 am EDT, bringing us the longest day in the year -- which means lots of extra sunlight for festivities. The day is also considered to be sacred by many pagans and Wiccans around the world who celebrate the solstice among their other yearly holidays.

Some refer to the summer solstice as "Litha," a term that may derive from 8th century monk Bede's The Reckoning of Time. Bede names "Litha" as the Latin name for both June and July in ancient times.

 

The summer solstice is one of four solar holidays, along with the autumnal equinox, the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. The other major pagan holidays are Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh.

 

 

Observers celebrate the solstice in myriad ways, including festivals, parades, bonfires, feasts and more. As one member of the Amesbury and Stonehenge Druids explains, "What you're celebrating on a mystical level is that you're looking at light at its strongest. It represents things like the triumph of the king, the power of light over darkness, and just life -- life at its fullest."

 

 

Celebrations for the summer solstice take place around the world, and not all are pagan-affiliated. One of the biggest pagan celebrations occurs at Stonehenge in England, but others take place among indigenous Latin and South American communities, and in Russia, Spain, and other countries.

 

 

As the official first day of summer, the solstice is a time of celebration. Cities around the world will mark the day with spiritual and secular celebrations, like this yoga festival in New York's Times Square, expected to draw thousands for some mid-city, summer realignment. More (PHOTOS)

St. Patrick's Day: So long to Pagans (video)

Pat Macpherson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly  HAPPY "PAGAN GENOCIDE DAY"!

(Bet You Didn't Know) St. Patrick's Day secrets and its strange history

     

The Pagans the Patriarch Destroyed

(Lillian Ewing) Documentary: Pagans of Ancient Times in Ireland and the British Isles

Patriarch Patrick, not Irish

Paganism refers to a group of polytheistic traditions -- primarily those of cultures known to the classical world. In a wider sense it has also been understood to include the non-Abrahamic (as opposed to the Dharmic), folk, or ethnic religions.

The term Pagan was historically used as one of several pejorative Christian counterparts to "gentile" (גוי / נכרי) as used in the JudeoChristian Bible -- comparable to "infidel" or "heretic." Modern ethnologists often avoid this broad usage in favor of more specific and less potentially-offensive terms such as shamanism, polytheism, pantheism, or animism when referring to traditional or historical faiths.

 

College Paganism: "Blarney Blowout" (UMass)

Since the 20th century "Paganism" or "Neopaganism" has become the identifier for a collection of new movements attempting to continue, revive, or reconstruct historical pre-Abrahamic religion.

There are roughly 300 million Pagans worldwide today (possibly many more who do not yet realize they are yearning for a more authentic Earth-based spirituality torn from us by sexist patriarchs, male-dominated religions, genocidal conquerors and enslavers). More

 
The Home of the Destroyers

Patriarch, ex-CE) Benedict

(History Channel) What drove the Holy Roman Empire/Church to switch from Mithraism to Catholicism, keeping the same hill in Rome, many of the same symbols and traditions, and just changing worship from the god Mithras to the new pop sensation god Jesus (Saint Issa, tulku and former Buddhist monk, later glorified as if he were Messiah/Maitreya (the teacher-to-come, which means "Friend" or Mitra, from the Sanskrit root maitri, which calls back to Mithraism -- as if all three of the world's great religions were rooted in Buddhism)? 

Religious symbols of the world

We may never know for sure, but the Vatican may have just been pandering to the masses it aimed to conquer, lead, and tyrannize. In some decades as a world capital (the "Holy See") of great wealth and luxury, more Satanism is practiced in the Vatican than Christianity, according to whistleblower Father Malachi Martin.

• The Real History of St. Patrick's Day
• St. Paddy's Day police checkpoints, Los Angeles
• AUDIO: Exorcisms and Possession
• AUDIO: "Prophecy of the Popes"
• The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church
• Hostage to the Devil, Keys of this Blood, Windswept House: A Vatican Novel

Yes, we molest. But it's not like it's a secret! It's not like it's just your kids. God wants us to!