Litha: A Time to Celebrate Resilience
by Kathryn Sheehan
Dark. If there is one word to describe 2025 thus far, it is “dark”. Here in the Northeast, we had one of the coldest and most snow-filled winters in years. Millions across the country are suffering job loss, deportation, and the diminishment of fundamental rights. Many are scared and overwhelmed. I have personally been dealing with health struggles related to endometriosis and had to make the difficult decision to walk away from a yearslong relationship that had become deeply lonely. For much of this year, I have felt empty and hopeless. We all have times in our lives when the days relentlessly blend together filled with an “existential” dread.
What can we do when we feel we are descending deeper and deeper into despair? How do we carry on when we see no light at the end of the tunnel?
While “existential” often conjures feelings of gloom and emptiness, it encapsulates the rather simple philosophy that life has the meaning we give it. We can either see it as devoid of hope and meaning… or overflowing with it.
While it is highly unlikely that the French philosopher, Albert Camus, was a secret Pagan, his existentialist musings often mirror the cycles of nature and the inward journeys we Pagans honor in our spiritual paths.
After his return to the ruins of Tipasa, an ancient Roman city in Algeria, Camus reflected on personal and societal darkness and the persistence of resilience:
In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Albert Camus, “Return to Tipasa”, 1952
Camus’s invincible summer is not something some have and others don’t. Cultivating it is a conscious choice we can all make.
Existentialism is interwoven with many pagan practices. Though our spiritual paths are best served by maintaining respect for the fundamental principles of correspondence, the tools and objects we work with ultimately have the meaning we give them.
A small tiger’s eye pendant I bought from a metaphysical shop in Cambridge has become my “power stone” for big work events and stressful social situations. I wore it in a multi-million dollar contract negotiation and in the aftermath of that aforementioned breakup… While I truly believe it gives me more confidence, does that confidence come directly from the stone? Or is the power in the choice to persevere that the stone represents?
Similarly, the insight found within ritual practice has the significance we choose to seek in it. Every ritual is an opportunity to transform, even if it is just a moment to pause and breathe. It is a chance to allow yourself to drift closer to your higher self. A ritual can be about finding your resilience, planting seeds for the future, or it can be a simple chance to breathe and have a break from the “existential” monotony.
On the Summer Solstice, we celebrate the longest day of the year when the earth’s bounty is at its peak. Cornucopia’s Summer Solstice ritual puts great focus on the Camus quotation. I have participated in this ritual multiple times, and meditating on this concept has been a deeply enriching experience each time and always for different reasons. I return to Camus’s invincible summer more and more each year.
I had always hoped that there would be a time in my life when I would feel like I had “arrived”, where I would find a permanent sense of ease with enough money, the right partner, a perfect home, and so forth. In recent years, I have had to accept the harsh reality that such a day will never come. That day does not come for any of us.
Our lives continuously oscillate between dark and light. The Hermetic Law of Rhythm reminds us that everything moves in cycles.
Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.
Three Initiates, The Kybalion: A Study of Ancient Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece, 1912.
We are perpetually in a state of transition and movement. So how do we weather these endless ups and downs?
We all need an invincible summer, something that lights the candle that guides us out of darkness. As Stephen Colbert famously said in an interview with Anderson Cooper, “it’s a gift to exist.” A well-known George Bernard Shaw quotation includes the sentiment that he “rejoice[s] in life for its own sake.”
At the end of 2024 when I was in the midst of a lengthy and grueling recovery from major surgery for endometriosis and everything in my life felt empty and uncertain, I was most certainly not rejoicing in life and I did not see it as a gift. Simply knowing that there was something better inside me pushing back against this despair helped me begin to recapture my spark. Nothing happened overnight of course, but continuously returning to these three individuals’ words helped me make small decisions each day that little by little pushed me toward healing and peace.
Camus’s invincible summer is not a denial of the reality of winter or an attempt to bypass the often senseless “existential” nature of life and its hardships. It is a reminder to us that in the face of those hardships, there is always the power to endure. There is no point on this earthly journey at which we “arrive” at a place free from suffering. But we are never without hope.
Camus’s words serve as a secular prayer for resilience. They remind us that within each of us lives a sacred flame—a connection to the divine, the Earth, and our true selves—that endures even when the world grows cold. Connecting with this flame is a conscious choice. Strength… resilience… love… these are available to each and every one of us if we choose to nurture them.
As we prepare our Litha fires, we invite our community to hold Camus’s words close to heart. Let them be a talisman through the changing seasons. As the sun crowns the sky, so too may we recognize and honor the invincible summers that have carried us through the winters of grief, uncertainty, and isolation.
Please join Cornucopia on June 22 as we celebrate the resilience of our light on the Summer Solstice. Let us celebrate the light above, the light within, and that it is always a gift to exist.