June Notebook: Beautiful things
Roses, strawberries and summer skies
Hello,
Happy June!
This is a month that needs no introduction or reframing.
It’s pure beauty. Everyone loves it.
In the dark days of January and February I bet it was this month you were dreaming about, right? And hurrah! It’s here!
There’s really nothing to do this month other than enjoy it.
Enjoy the strawberries, the roses, the sunshine, the deep magic of the Summer Solstice. Enjoy the feeling of Summer just unfolding in front of us.
I love the long days at this time of year, but I also really love the summer evenings.
Pottering around outside after a busy day, tripping over garden toys and watering the plants as the sun slowly sets and a quiet calm settles over everything feels very specifically June.
There have been some beautiful apricot / pink evening skies recently too…
Magic, magic, magic.
Here are a few more of my favourite things about this month:
Flower of the month: Rose
Who doesn’t love a rose? They’re the birth flower for June and in the language of flowers they’re said to symbolise love, beauty and friendship.
They’re a key ingredient in many of the love spells traditionally practised this month too - just take a few petals and put them under your pillow on Midsummer Eve in order to dream of your one true love. (But don’t blame me if it’s someone you weren’t expecting! Magic works in mysterious ways!)
Talking of roses; I have mixed feelings about the new stripy David Austin rose that was shown at Chelsea this year. Has anyone else seen it? Thoughts?
I’m a huge David Austin fan, but I’m always drawn more toward their old roses. This year I’m growing Scepter'd Isle for the first time, and I already have the Queen of Sweden lurking at the back of a border, which is possibly the prettiest rose in existence. Pure romance.
Moon names of the month
June’s full moon lands on the 11th and has some excellent folklore names. You might know it as the Strawberry Moon; not because of its colour, but because it marks the start of wild strawberry season.
But there are plenty of other brilliant names for this moon too. According to The Almanac and The Farmer’s Almanac some of the traditional Native American names for the June Full Moon are:
Blooming Moon (Anishinaabe)
Green Corn Moon (Cherokee)
Plants in Garden Are Sprouting Moon (Cherokee)
Egg Laying Moon (Cree)
Hatching Moon (Cree)
Meanwhile, the Anglo Saxon names for the June Full Moon reflect the sweetness and romance of the season:
Honey Moon
Rose moon
Mead Moon
Summer Solstice Rituals
The Summer Solstice falls on the 21st June; a day that’s filled to the brim with magic and solar power.
This short night of heat and light has traditionally been a time when magic and mischief was considered to be strong, and it’s full of ancient folklore.
I love it and will be sending out a Solstice Special newsletter nearer the date, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
If you want something to read before then, you might like this essay on Solstice magic from a couple of years ago.
Solstice books
This month I’m eagerly awaiting my first advance copy of my new book, The Solstice Yearbook!
It should be arriving any day now and I can’t wait to see a real life copy. It won’t be in shops until 2nd September, but I can start to share bits and pieces of it with you soon, in the run up to publication day.
It’s filled to the brim with rituals, folklore, crafts and recipes and I hope you’ll love it.
More to come!
You can pre-order it here if you fancy it.
Ok, that’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed your June newsletter and I hope you have a wonderful month filled with roses, strawberries and Solstice magic.
Now it’s over to you to share your June rituals and traditions in the Comments.
I’ll see you next month for a July edition of the Monthly Notebook. We’ll be diving into high summer rituals, water festivals and coastal living. Look forward to seeing you there.
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Vicky xx
We live surrounded by David Austen roses too, the Lady of Shallot and Desdemona are either side of the path from the back of the house, and the front is a riot of Lark Ascending and Morning Mist, (bobbing over a mass of psychedelic self-seeded orange California and scarlet poppies, which I refuse to pull up wherever they appear) and there are many others. I can quite understand why people become rose fanatics, we talk about them and their characters, foibles, habits etc as though they were people; Gertrude Jekyll has the most intoxicating Turkish delight perfume which makes us forgive her her savage little thorns which cluster round the flowers, Thomas a'Becket nearly gets martyred for his untidy, flopping, petal-shedding habits, but then we allow him to stay for his unusual carmine colour and grand crown of buds...
That striped rose has ancient antecedents, the Rosa Mundi goes back to at least the 16th century and there have been many other attempts to breed them.
Lovely post, as always!
Scepter'd Isle and Queen of Sweden are cracking roses aren't they? I fell hard for the new King's Rose, and stumped out for one (ouch, that hurt!). Love it! And it has a historical precedent with the old Rosa mundi, a striped version of a pink gallica rose. I always wanted one of those, but the new one had its wicked way with my wallet!