I am getting a few things for my altar to celebrate the solstice. I have some beautiful yellow beeswax candle and fresh flowers from my garden. Are there specific colors that are traditionally associated with this Sabbat?
My village celebrates Litha probably more than Beltane! The 20th and 23rd are normal workdays; but at the weekend the village erupts with colour. There is the Scarecrow Festival. All year the children of the village,helped by many adults!, have been making very realistic, and life-sized Scarecrows. On Saturday they will be all over the village.In every nook and cranny,in the branches of trees. And just about every garden in the village will have a Scarecrow.Hundreds of people from all over Yorkshire come to the village during Litha.On the Sunday there will be Maypole dancing (again!), stalls selling all kinds of goods,mostly home-made. A brass band> And prodigious amounts of beer and cider!
The colours are many, but mainly pink (wild roses) and blue (Grape Hyacinths). My village is very old, well over two thousand years,and, although there are two churches (CofE and Methodist) the village is very much Pagan!
If you wish to see pictures the Scarecrows of past years, Google "Gildersome Scarecrow Fest".
Oh,yes! Litha is a great weekend in my village.
"My village is very old, well over two thousand years..."
"Gildersome is thought to be a corruption of Guelderzoom in recognition of Dutch immigrants fleeing from Guelderland around 1751 who found asylum in the area." - Source; http://gildersomeparishcouncil.co.uk/
The above is just the origin of the name.There was a settlement here pre-Roman.Rural at that time,no actual village,but there were farms.It is in the Domesday Book as part of Morley.
Then the village itself isn't two thousand years old, it's 17th - 18th century. No offence, but it's like me claiming that Princetown on Dartmoor is over 4500 years old because Neolithic shepherds used to keep their sheep there.
On topic, colours usually associated with the summer solstice are anything "sunny"; yellow, gold, white, etc.
Colors are normally what you expect for honoring the Summer. Yellow or Gold for the sun. Red and orange for fire. Green for the leaves on trees. And the color of flowers...I prefer to use the colors for local flowers currently in bloom.
And so you know, you don't have to use any "set" traditional colors for a Sabbat. Go with the colors that you associate with the season. I find that always made me help connect better to the event than using some set of standard color associations. Makes it more personal.
There is an excellent discussion about Litha/MidSummer that I think you will find interesting and which may help you with your planning. You can find it at http://www.witchessabbats.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=26
You'll probably appreciate the articles on that site about the other Sabbats as well.
