Solstice musings

Currently, I'm finding the solstices are the festivals which resonate most with me. Change seems to be a daily occurrence here at the moment and this seems to be reflected in my feeling of affinity with those 2 most momentous changes in the year, the solstices, when the whole tide of the year turns and swings back the opposite way.
I've always felt the new year, for me, to start at the winter solstice. The return of the sun and the tide of the year turning to go out just always feels to me like the start of something. Things start to grow then, even in the depths of the winter. Tucked up in the house, the germs of ideas start in the mind just as the seeds already lie dormant in the earth, planted, but waiting for spring to burst into life. And this year this was more true than ever with our family's leap into the unknown with the ending of my husband's job in January. And so we've spent the first half of this year frantically putting plans into action, seeking inspiration, enacting new ideas and new projects. And now the tide is turning, will we see the fruits of our labours? I hope so. The tide is starting, ever so slowly at first, to return towards us. The year matures into harvest time and then consolidation and dormancy once again.
As my husband finishes his teaching course, I lead my local Home Ed Group into its new permanent home, we jointly seek new employment opportunities, my novel goes out into the world to seek an agent, I ponder ideas for re-training for myself, our allotment starts to yield its produce, and the children change in leaps and bounds in so many ways all the time - I wonder what fruits this autumn will have for us as a family.
This has been a quiet, contemplative summer solstice, and I feel I have learnt a great deal in the past year and also changed a fair amount. The noble virtue I have been meditating on most of all recently has been 'perseverance'. I am quietly confident that whatever changes we see by the winter solstice will be for the best, and that the chnaging of the next tide will bring further change and good fortune.
Summer blessings to all!