The Solstice Saint

an essay

NOTE:

This essay was posted last year during this week, back when many of you were not yet following me. I’m still very proud of it, so I wanted to share it again today!

This time of year has such a delightful potency. It is the time when herbs are gathered, the flowers bloom, and everything hits a unique crest of vibrancy. May this essay find you and bless you, whether this is your second reading or you’re meeting it for the first time!

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Photo by Andy Chilton on Unsplash

Saint John's wort, Saint John's wort, 
My envy whosoever has thee,
I will pluck thee with my right hand,
I will preserve thee with my left hand,
Whoso findeth thee in the cattle fold,
Shall never be without kine.

Traditional Scottish Prayer (from the Carmina Gadelica)

Let’s talk about one of my favorite strange times of the year: the 24th of June, the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. It is a place where folk magic, the science of herbalism, the ever-turning seasonal cycles, and the power of Christian storytelling tradition meet.

Saint John the Baptist is the only person, aside from Mary and Jesus Himself, whose birth is celebrated in the liturgical calendar. The feast days of all other saints center around their deaths. His birth date was planned very carefully by the early church who set these (admittedly folkloric) dates: it sits at the exact opposite end of the year from Jesus’ own birth celebration on Christmas Eve.

In this way, John’s birth heralds the sun’s recession at the summer solstice, and Christ’s birth heralds the sun’s return in winter.

This peculiar liturgical rhythm is the reason why June was traditionally considered the month for gathering and preserving medicinal herbs ahead of winter. Saint John’s role in the Bible was one of preparation for the coming of Christ, and the feast of his birth signaled to all that they needed to prepare, make way, and get ready for what may come.

The Celtic Christians had a real affinity for Saint John the Baptist. They liked the saint’s upfrontness, his voluntary poverty in the wilderness (a common lifestyle chosen by Celtic monks), and his single-minded focus on preparing the way for Christ’s arrival.

Because of this, one little wildflower was especially beloved by the Celts, and even today: Saint John’s Wort, or Hypericum perforatum. This unassuming little plant grows wild in all kinds of regions, and blooms in sweet little yellow flowers around the feast day of the saint it is named for. That alone would explain the name, but also: the herb does something quite interesting when steeped in oil or tinctured in alcohol to make medicine. Over time it turns the liquid around it brilliant red, like blood. A symbol of the saint’s grisly death, perhaps?

Remember: to the ancients, there was no real line between the rhythm of the seasons and the realm of theology. This is why another beautiful ancient prayer for the gathering of Saint John’s Wort goes like this:

I will cull my plantlet,
As a prayer to my King,
That mine may be its power
Over all I see. 

I will cull my plantlet,
As a prayer to the Three,
Beneath the shade of the Triune of grace.
And of Mary the Mother of Jesu. 

Back then, Saint John’s Wort was gathered and held under the left armpit for good luck. I can’t speak to the efficacy of that, myself. But I can say that you could find much worse ways to spend a day than to take time on the feast of John the Baptist to gather, or even just take a whiff of, your favorite fragrant herbs and flowers.

And in them, perhaps you may feel the bittersweet stirring of the Summer Solstice message, an echo of something the Baptist himself may have preached:

Prepare, for the Light will fade. Yet have hope, for the Light will return.

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