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Summer Solstice is a time I eagerly move toward each year, as we pass through the spring equinox and into the fullness of the growing season.
It means so many things to me.
It’s the day I met Gus, my partner, my husband, a sweet and beautiful man that I love dearly, 23 years ago. Then 11 years later, it’s the same day I married him deep in the Maine woods with our sweet dog Wilco.
The Summer Solstice marks the longest day and shortest night of the year. It’s the moment when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and the growing season feels full, alive and illuminated. For many, it’s a time of celebration, abundance and light. For those of us who farm, garden or work closely with plants, it’s also a meaningful marker in the rhythm of the year.
As a farmer and an herbalist, it marks a time when so many things are coming into life or have fully come alive. There’s something deeply magical and otherworldly for me at this time of year. The thick, humid evenings. The way the humidity hangs onto every molecule it can find. Dusk has a thickness to it, one you can almost wrap yourself in.
I have a lot of gratitude for the humidity and the moisture it brings. This time of year is when we start to see and feel it more, as the summer heat begins to ramp up.
As a child, I was aware of this seasonal shift too. I could feel it, sense it, and even hear it. Longer days meant more time to roam and explore. School was out. The summer heat had arrived, which meant some of the first swims in the ocean at camp.
My grandfather built a camp on a cove in Harpswell back in the 1940s from an old Sears kit, and the solstice marked the beginning of endless play and adventure there. During the day, I would get lost in the sparkle of the salt water and the treasures it left when the tide went out. In the evening, there was the sparkle of lightning bugs throughout the woods and in the field across the narrow dirt camp road.
As a kid, it meant the beginning of play, adventure and endless time to get curious, run free and explore.
It’s also the time of year when the farm begins to exhale.
By the Summer Solstice, the plants intended for harvest that season have mostly made their way into the ground. For me, those weeks leading up to solstice can feel like a race to the finish line. The angst is real when it comes to getting thousands of little baby plants planted, watered, weeded and settled into the field.
But once the solstice arrives, something in me softens.
My shoulders drop. My muscles relax. I’m getting to the lake to swim and working on other farm projects. My desire to tend to every single detail starts to lessen. The plants are in their places and working on getting rooted. I’m still tending them and keeping them weed free, but really, it’s up to them now to do what they were born to do.
Grow and be magnificent.
I love being on the farm at dusk. I love weeding and being with the plants at this time. The light shifts as the shadows and darkness of the forest surrounding the fields start to close in. I’m surrounded by the sounds of thrushes and other songbirds.
For me, work on the farm starts in April, and April at dusk looks and feels very different than the end of June. With each extra minute of light, and with each new day, there are new sounds and new experiences. You can feel and hear the changes. New signs of life arrive day by day, until by the time we reach the solstice, everything feels like it’s living its best expression all at once.
By this time of year, the first harvests of nettles (Urtica dioica), red clover (Trifolium pratense), mullein leaf (Verbascum thapsus), chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), comfrey (Symphytum officinale) and plantain (Plantago spp.) have already been gathered and dried. The lilac (Syringa vulgaris) elixir has been made and is ready for pressing and bottling, and our divine wild rose (Rosa rugosa) elixir is in process or being made.
This time of year there is so much happening at once that it can be overwhelming, in the best possible way. Admittedly, I’m supposed to be harvesting and making medicine. But it’s also the time of year I grapple with the first harvests. I would rather just let the plants be and not harvest.
But the solstice is a time I’m called every year to make plant medicine. It’s not a conscious act. It comes from someplace inside me. It’s more of a knowing or a calling.
For me, I love the solstice for harvesting and making elixirs and tinctures, but even more than that, I love making flower essences on the solstice. Can you think of a better day than the solstice to work with the alchemical energies of the flower and the sun?
The solstice is a time when I shift from creating beds, planting and worrying about whether the plants will make it, to seeing the plants become established in a way that allows me to feel more at ease. It means I’m now in maintenance. Keeping the beds weed free and moving into a new rhythm of harvesting and medicine making.
Historically, I make yarrow (Achillea millefolium) flower essence on the solstice.
A flower essence is an energetic preparation made by infusing fresh flowers in water and sunlight to capture the subtle energetic imprint of the plant.
You, me, and everything we see is made up of energy and frequencies. This includes the plants. I use this sacred day of light to work with the plants energetically by making flower essences with them.
Yarrow is one of my favorites to make on the solstice because of its energetics around protection, boundaries and helping guide us back to our true selves.
Working with yarrow to create and define boundaries can be very useful for those who are easily influenced or depleted by others in their environment. It works well for people who have a tendency to absorb negative energies. Yarrow can help tighten or astringe a person’s boundaries and energy field from “bleeding out” into the environment.
Yarrow flower essence helps us trust and follow our path, strengthening our awareness of ourselves and guiding us back to our true essence.
When I make yarrow flower essence, I start early in the morning, but not too early that the sun hasn’t reached the plants. I also wait until the dew on the flowers has dried.
I use a clear glass bowl filled with water and cut, one by one, just the flowers of the yarrow until the entire surface of the water is covered in flowers. I do not touch the flowers. The bowl is placed at the base of the plants and left all day in the sun.
Another plant medicine I like to make, if enough is in bloom, is fresh St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) oil and tincture.
This is the only plant that I let sit in the sun. It’s imperative that it interact with the sun. There’s a chemical and magical reaction that happens when you let St. John’s Wort sit in the sun creating that glorious, stunning, bright red. It’s such a spectacular sight. Just gorgeous.
Often Father’s Day will fall on or around the Summer Solstice. This is also the time of year that I’m harvesting wild rose petals from the wild Rosa rugosa.
If you haven’t tried our Wild Rose Elixir, or any rose elixir for that matter, it’s an experience. For me, making the Wild Rose Elixir, for me, is a wonderful version of experiencing spiritual connection.
The interaction I experience with my surroundings during this harvest can be sublime and otherworldly.
For a moment, close your eyes, and have someone read this part to you, and imagine the most beautiful coastal beach. The warmth of the sun beaming down from a blue sky with just the right amount of white, wispy clouds. The ocean is perfect. Calm, but lapping at the shore. Out in the distance, you can see a few small islands. The shape of this beach is crescent, with jagged, slate-colored rocky cliffs that seem like matching bookends. Just behind the sand line is a marsh, and surrounding everything is a deep, thick evergreen forest. In between the beach and the forest is a row of striking, dark pink wild beach roses. The smell in the air is a mixture of evergreens, salty ocean and the sweet floral scent of rose. All around you, you can hear the gentle sounds of wind mixed with the buzzing of bees, the songs of birds and the sounds of the ocean meeting the land.
It’s perfection at its best.
For me, this is a time when I become so present with the moment that everything becomes more vivid and clear. Visually, everything feels like technicolor on high. My senses feel amped. The smell, the sounds, the colors of the forest-lined Maine coast, the ocean, and the pink flowers of the roses all come together in a way that feels like perfection.
Our Wild Rose Elixir captures all of those energies.
It’s not just rose petals mixed with honey, water and alcohol. It’s an alchemy of land, ocean and air.
So, back to Father’s Day. Sometimes the solstice falls on this day, and there have been many years when my dad and mom join me on a solstice rose harvest. For me, these have been such sweet moments and ways to spend time with my parents. We go to special areas around Harpswell, visiting roses that I’ve known since I was a child, and for my mom, some of these plants have been living there since she was young.
It’s a beautiful pilgrimage of honoring family and plants in a landscape that opened up so much wonder in me as a child.
I move through the world by seasons. Feeling my way through plantings, blooms, harvests, decomposition, hibernation and rebirth. Through the quiet knowing that nothing stays the same, and everything has its time.
Seasonal herbalism asks us to pay attention. It reminds us that herbs are not just ingredients on a shelf. They are living plants with their own cycles of growth, bloom, seed and rest. The leaves, flowers, roots and berries we harvest all have their own season, and that timing shapes the medicine they become.
On the farm, this means our work is guided by the plants themselves. We are not separate from the growing season. We are part of it.
The herbs gathered around the Summer Solstice may eventually become teas, elixirs, tinctures, oils or tonics. A single harvest can carry the feeling of a season forward, moving from the field into the apothecary, and eventually into the hands of the people who use it, like you.
This is part of what farm-to-bottle herbalism means to me. It’s not just about where the plants come from. It’s about being in relationship with the whole process.
The Summer Solstice does not need to be complicated to be meaningful. You can honor the day by honoring yourself, by noticing the light and how that expansion of light makes you feel, spending time outside, gathering flowers or herbs from the garden, swimming in a lake, which is on of my favs, making a seasonal tea, watching the sunset or sharing food with people you love.
You might also take a moment to reflect on what has grown in your own life since winter.
What has taken root?
What is blooming?
What needs more tending?
What are you ready to trust?
Nothing needs to be complicated. Do nothing. Do everything. Do whatever you want. Make it be just what you want and need it to be.
A refreshing herbal tea, infusion or mocktail is one of the simplest ways to bring the plants into your solstice celebration. Choose herbs that feel bright, floral, calming and refreshing.
You can get a bag of our Tulsi Rose Tea or whip up a blend of your own with herbs like lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), rose petals (Rosa spp.), tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum), peppermint (Mentha × piperita) or whatever you have on hand and choose.
To make your iced tea with dry or fresh herbs, start the night before the solstice. I like to make mine in a mason jar, but a French press works well too. I take a nice handful of the blend and place it in the vessel. Pour boiling water over the herbs, cover and place in the fridge overnight. If you plan to add honey, add it before placing it in the fridge. The next day, strain and enjoy with flower ice cubes.
Another magical way to work with the plants is to make an herbal sun tea on the solstice. Using a mason jar or French press, fill it with fresh herbs of your choice. Fill with water, let it infuse in the sun, and then enjoy.
For me, the Summer Solstice is a celebration of love, life, beauty, color and the deep intelligence of the natural world. It’s a time to honor the cycles, welcome the abundance around us, and begin turning our attention toward the harvests that will carry us into fall.
The solstice reminds me that abundance is not something to rush through. It’s something to notice, feel and experience.
The light will begin to shift again, as it always does. But for this moment, the fields are full, the plants are rising and the season is asking us to be present.
As we move into the fullness of summer, these are a few herbal formulas that I love for the abundance this season brings.
My personal favorite for those long, hot days, especially when I need to balance my electrolytes from being out in the fields sweating everything out of me, are Turmeric Tonic, White Pine Shrub, Rose Petal Shrub, and Digestive Tonic. I keep these real simple. A mason jar with ice, a tablespoon or two or three, I like it strong, of the shrub or tonic, and then I fill the jar with water, stir and enjoy.
This is so refreshing and deeply replenishing. It can also be made into a divine mocktail. The sky’s the limit on the ways you can work with them.
I also always have some Iced Tulsi Rose Tea, Iced Mother Lovin' Tea or Iced Roasted Roots Tea on hand in the fridge. These are delicious. Period. Always have a jar going in your fridge.
For elixirs, I can’t get enough of the Lilac and Wild Rose Elixirs. The Wild Rose goes so fast that I hoard a handful of the bottles so I don’t go without them all year.
I always have Go To Bed by my bed. This time of year, I’m so excited. There’s so much happening and I want to do everything, which means I tend to stay up later, which has an effect on my mind. To help calm and quiet my mind for rest and sleep, I use Go To Bed nightly.
I also love Go With Your Gut for supporting my digestive system. I tend to eat a bit more sporadically, and a bit less, during the hot summer, and this digestive blend helps support my appetite.
Lastly, I mean not really, I’m using so many of our products because I love them all, but my last call out is Attitude Adjustment. With the busyness of summer, there can come a bit of tension or stress, and Attitude Adjustment helps soften that.
Wishing you all a fabulous summer!
Explore the connection between digestion, immunity, and mental health through herbal medicine. Learn how herbs like ginger, turmeric, chamomile, fennel, and dandelion root support gut health and discover Herbal Revolution’s Digestive Tonic, Turmeric Tonic, and Go With Your Gut Elixir for everyday wellness.
The Story of Fire Cider: From Farm Apprentice to Founder of Herbal Revolution. When people ask me about Fire Cider, my answer can go in a few directions, it can be layered and complex like an herbal formula, or it can be straightforward as a single plant tincture. Both have their place and their depth. Most of the time, though, I find myself landing somewhere in the middle, and that’s exactly where I’ve landed today.
