Journaling In The Summer Solstice

With Prompts to Get You Started

This June, my region is bathed in light. Long days, blistering sun, storms with violent sheets of lightning. It’s enough to drive me to the dark, cool comfort of my basement office.

I have an ambivalent relationship with summer. I love how daylight stretches out to hold all my usual activities. The cacophony of June flowers bursting into color energizes me. But I cower under the heat and humidity, my skin flickering from pale to pink to freshly freckled.

Summer isn’t my favorite season.

Yet this is time for my beloved ritual of journaling in the summer solstice. I call it “journaling in” as if I play some role in its arrival. In reality, I journal with or to the solstice sunrise, but journaling in captures my sense of welcoming summer and being part of its movement, despite my ambivalence.

Journaling In The Solstice

My ritual isn’t elaborate, so perhaps you’ll find it easy to embrace and adapt to your life. I do basically the same thing for winter solstice, unless it’s too frigid, when you might find me in my living room.

With coffee and journal, I get situated on my porch about an hour before sunrise. I listen to the birds begin to call and the small critters begin to crinkle through the leaf litter on our hillside. And I watch the brightening sky for the moment when the sun crests up from behind the mountain that stands between me and the horizon. I take a moment to pause, breathe, express gratitude for the day.

Somewhere in all of this, I journal. Most years I’m moved to write in the twilight, but I’ve also found myself focused on the waking natural world rather than the page until after daylight. So yes, this is a flexible, adaptable ritual.

I’m pleased to share with you some guided journal prompts that may help you pause and reflect at the solstice, whether or not you decide to rise early. May they support you in finding a Singularly Sensitive way to mark this seasonal transition!

1.     What am I being called to pause and what am I being called to expand at this time? How can I gain support for this process?

2.     How can I lean into the parts of life that are challenging or less desirable? How can I notice and celebrate the small moments of joy, pleasure, aesthetic intrigue, and fulfillment that exist even in those seasons?

3.     Who am I now and who was I in years past at the solstice? What does this say about the narrative of my life thus far? What stories do I want to be able to tell in a year or ten or twenty?

4.     What gifts have I received this solstice season? And what gifts do I have to share?

5.     Summer solstice highlights an expansion of time and possibilities. How will I apply this spaciousness to my life? What can I do to prepare for the contracture of the winter season?