Summer Solstice, The Goddess + The Power Of Invocation

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer is about to arrive.  The quickening is so palpible in the air.  

Can you feel it?  

There is the crackling of fire and electricity in the air and internally.  Personally, I’m restless with the impatience of what wants to be birthed forth this year and staying on track with one thing at a time is feeling like a heroic challenge.

Some of you celebrate the Summer Solstice and some don’t.  Truthfully, there are years that I do something formal, like a ritual, and some years where I just lay around outside and soak up the energy of the sun on my face.  Both are celebratory, filled with gratitude and a work of deep nourishment.

So this year, I want to share this invocation I wrote a couple of years ago, that you can go ahead and use in your ritual or as a stand alone.  Because it can truly be as simple as standing under the blazing face of the Sun and offering up this invocation as a mode of acknowledgment and empowerment.

The Goddess

A word about the Goddess before I share the invocation with you, and then I also encourage you to read past the invocation in order to take the work deeper if you choose:

Not all tradtions in Witchcraft work with the The God and the Goddess.  Not all traditions work with the idea of duality at all.  

There is also some chatter about only working with the gender that you most identify with.  I want to encourage you to allow for wider possibilities.

The Goddess is both true entity and archetype.  Working with the archetype of the Goddess can be a healing and empowering practice for all genders.  

The way the energy moves and manifest with this specific archetype is unique to itself and serves us all in our deeper healing and our capacity to live in the intuitive and responsive flow of life.  She is as much external to you as She is internal to you.  

So here is the invocation you can use as part of your ritual celebrations for the Summer Solstice:

Hail to you, Mother Goddess.

You who source the life pulse in all things, you who embody the essence of fullness – the full reflective Moon, the fully blazing Sun, the gloriously fully bloomed flower of Summer.

I call to You, She who births existence out of Her expansive
fecundity and power. I offer praise for the sustenance You give us, for the beauty You impart, for the lessons of creation, abundance and amplitude.

It is out of You, that the magick of manifestation and healing and pulsating creation comes through the world and through me in all aspects of my creative life.

Bless you. Bless you. Bless you.

I stand firm and open to be a vessel of embodiment for all that You are.

I hold the container for creation. I stand in power and beauty, channeling your wisdom and your fecundity.

I create Life in all forms, whether through deed, work, children, art, healing or magick.

May I be the purity of the beating drum of life, touching all around me with reverence, authority and love.

I am creator. I am whole. I am Goddess, Mother, Empress, Emperor.

I am the container of this ritual as you are the container for us all.

I am witch
I am maiden
I am mother
I am crone

May the wisdom of this time of year as well as the potency of the full Moon and full Sun fill me, that I might go forth in my world healing, creating and holding space for the sacred in all things.

So it is.

You + The Power Of Invocation

Now, I want you to imagine reading that invocation, but instead of directing it to the Goddess outside of you, you invoke yourself.

You are the Goddess.  You are the life pulse of all things.  You are the one that births existence out of your internal expanse.  

Yes.

This isn’t make believe, this is the purest power within you.  It might be an untapped and unacknowledged power within you, but it is there none the less.

Could you call out to Yourself this way?  Could you do this in front of your peers, owning your power and authority matter of factly like this?

Does it sound preposterous and not at all right?

Listen, until we release ourselves from the small boxes we have been placed in by society and life experiences, we won’t fully touch our own power.

Invoking your truest self forth begins to break down those walls we are trapped by, it begins to dismantle all the ways we put ourselves down, and begins to unravel all of the false narratives we have believed about who we are and are not.

The power of invocation in ritual is sourced in you. When you invoke a spirit or deity or energy forth, it is YOU who have the power to source that summoning.  So, of course, when you begin to invoke yourself, that power still stands, despite the fact that it first has to make its way past your own fears and beliefs around your supposed smallness.

And THIS is a part of what the retreat, Invoke Yourself, Holy Witch, is about.  

Join us.  

This retreat is a deeply transformative 3 day experience. It happens yearly. Click the link above for dates on the upcoming retreat.