We carried Death away for you, We brought the Summer. And do thou, O holy Marketa, Give us a good year For wheat and for rye. Just as the light or waxing half of the year began at Winter Solstice with the longest night, the dark or waning half begins now at Summer Solstice with the longest day. Apollo gives way to Dionysus, Osiris to Set, Baal to Mot, Jesus to St. John, the Oak King to the Holly King, Sir Gawain to the Green Knight, and the rule of the Dark Lord supersedes that of the Lord of Light over the wheel of the year.
Balance is maintained.
Litha is a fire festival, one of the four Esbats of the year. It honors the Lord as sun god or horned god at the peak of his powers, the King of Summer crowned with roses. In the agricultural year Midsummer is the time of full bloom, between planting and harvest. Litha celebrates abundance, fertility, virility, the beauty and bounty of Nature. It is a good time for empowerment, for strong magick and male rituals, for handfastings and communing with Nature Spirits, for workings of consummation or culmination.