June
Welcome to June's section of Ecoliteracy for Educators.
An exciting month in which the second Quarter Festival: Litha, falls on 21st June, also known as The Summer Solstice. The first Quarter Festival, Ostara, marked the beginning of the course on the Spring Equinox which means we've reached the halfway point of the course! How time flies.
To kick off this month, I wanted to return to Lia Leendertz's brilliant podcast 'As the Season Turns' in which she talks about making oak gall ink and explains how Midsummer's Day was traditionally celebrated on 24th June as well as the popularity of lighting a Midsummer Fire as the sun sets on Midsummer Eve. She also explains why the Midsummer Full Moon is low whereas the Midwinter Full moon is high in the sky. She also offers a spell which uses a Dog Rose at midday on Midsummer's Day which you press and upon re-finding either 10 days later or at Christmas, the first friend you think of is of great importance.
From 3rd June you'll have access to resources exploring the ID and folklore of:
Flowers:
Dog Rose
Foxglove
Honeysuckle
Wild Strawberry
Then after the Rose or Oak Super Full Moon on Wednesday 14th June the section on trees will be released so as to not overwhelm you with new resources! These are the trees for June:
Trees:
Elder
Field Maple
Lime
Oak
You may remember the 9 sacred woods mentioned in May's resources. Of the nine, we've now explored Alder, Birch, Hawthorn and Hazel and this month we'll take a look at Oak.
Just as a reminder, the 9 sacred woods are the first 9 which appear in the Celtic Tree Calendar: Birch, Rowan, Ash, Alder, Willow, Hawthorn, Oak, Holly and Hazel.
Also back in May I suggested that you may wish to start gathering the dead branches from these trees as you observe them throughout June, to season ready for the next fire festival (Lughnasadh) which falls 6 weeks after the Summer Solstice, at the beginning of August.
An exciting month in which the second Quarter Festival: Litha, falls on 21st June, also known as The Summer Solstice. The first Quarter Festival, Ostara, marked the beginning of the course on the Spring Equinox which means we've reached the halfway point of the course! How time flies.
To kick off this month, I wanted to return to Lia Leendertz's brilliant podcast 'As the Season Turns' in which she talks about making oak gall ink and explains how Midsummer's Day was traditionally celebrated on 24th June as well as the popularity of lighting a Midsummer Fire as the sun sets on Midsummer Eve. She also explains why the Midsummer Full Moon is low whereas the Midwinter Full moon is high in the sky. She also offers a spell which uses a Dog Rose at midday on Midsummer's Day which you press and upon re-finding either 10 days later or at Christmas, the first friend you think of is of great importance.
From 3rd June you'll have access to resources exploring the ID and folklore of:
Flowers:
Dog Rose
Foxglove
Honeysuckle
Wild Strawberry
Then after the Rose or Oak Super Full Moon on Wednesday 14th June the section on trees will be released so as to not overwhelm you with new resources! These are the trees for June:
Trees:
Elder
Field Maple
Lime
Oak
You may remember the 9 sacred woods mentioned in May's resources. Of the nine, we've now explored Alder, Birch, Hawthorn and Hazel and this month we'll take a look at Oak.
Just as a reminder, the 9 sacred woods are the first 9 which appear in the Celtic Tree Calendar: Birch, Rowan, Ash, Alder, Willow, Hawthorn, Oak, Holly and Hazel.
Also back in May I suggested that you may wish to start gathering the dead branches from these trees as you observe them throughout June, to season ready for the next fire festival (Lughnasadh) which falls 6 weeks after the Summer Solstice, at the beginning of August.
2 Lessons