The Summer Solstice

  I've now written about the Ogham Tree Alphabet and this book  many times on the blog. It's been very useful book for filling blog posts!

But there's one  plant mentioned in the book that I've not written about before...........The Heather.

Heather represents the Summer Solstice, which was yesterday and instead of a bright early sunrise with the heatwave there was mist hanging around and even some spots of rain just after 11.

1,920 × 1,080

Heather represents the letter U in the Ogham Alphabet and the number 18. It also means solitude.

Last September I took a photo of the glorious purple heather on the heath near Dunwich 

And picked a sprig for luck which sat on the dashboard in the car for the next month falling to pieces until I realised it would make a blog post.

Each heather plant looks like a tree in miniature, with a gnarled and twisted 'trunk' up to 18 inches tall. Bees love the nectar of heather flowers and heather honey is prized.

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Solstice 20th/21st

 From the Latin Sol meaning sun and sistere "cause to stand still"

The summer solstice, when the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer and daylight hours are the longest for us here. 

We say a day, but really the Solstice is just one moment in time - UK time 3.42am tomorrow morning.

Some people will be joining the Druids at Stonehenge for an all night vigil and to watch the sunrise or heading to a Neolithic passage tomb on Anglesey where the inner burial chamber is lit up by a shaft of light as the sun rises.

In the past bonfires would have been lit and the solstice was once said to be the perfect time to gather herbs, especially Vervain, which was cultivated as a medicinal herb in Medieval times for use as a relaxant or nerve tonic.

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