Free Online Ritual · Litha: The Fire at the Threshold | A Summer Solstice Ritual of Radiance, Shadow, and Becoming with Selena Madden

Sunday, June 21, 2026
7pm ET (NYC time)
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At the Summer Solstice—known as Litha—we arrive at the height of light, a moment when the sun appears to stand still before its slow descent into darkness, inviting us into a ritual of radiance, power, and profound reckoning.

In this mini lecture-ritual, we will explore Litha not only as a seasonal celebration, but as a liminal threshold: the precise point at which expansion meets its edge, and illumination reveals not only what is flourishing—but what has been hidden within the brightness itself.

Drawing from European folk traditions, contemporary witchcraft, and depth psychological frameworks, this offering reframes the solstice as both celebration and initiation. We will enter into the archetype of the radiant sovereign—but we will also turn, deliberately, toward her shadow.

Here, we may encounter figures such as Kali in the fire of dissolution, Hekate at the threshold between what has been and what is becoming, and Freyja as the embodiment of desire, sovereignty, and the cost of radiance. We may also turn toward Áine, the Irish goddess of midsummer and solar power, or Lugh, the radiant sovereign whose mastery contains the seed of sacrifice. These figures are not approached as distant deities, but as archetypal presences—guides through the paradox of fullness and undoing.

Participants will be guided through an embodied ritual designed for an online setting, incorporating candlelight, water, and the body as an instrument of awareness. We will work with simple hand mudras to contain and direct energy, allowing the body to participate in the ritual as both altar and threshold.

For those who feel called, there will be an optional fire practice: the intentional burning of a written word, phrase, or symbol—offered to the flame as an act of release, devotion, or transformation. (A candle flame is sufficient; all fire practices will be approached with care and mindfulness.)

Through breath, visualization, and subtle gesture, we will attune to the fire within—the heat of desire, creativity, and life force—while asking a more difficult question: What in me is at its peak… and already beginning to turn?

This is not a ritual of passive gratitude, but of conscious engagement with one’s own vitality, shadow, and limits. Together, we will stand at the apex of the year—not only to celebrate the light, but to witness what it reveals, and what it cannot protect us from.

No prior experience is required. This offering is open to all who feel called to engage the solstice as a living, embodied threshold.

Dr. Selena Madden is a mythologist, educator, and ritualist whose work lives at the threshold—where story opens the psyche and ritual rekindles the sacred. She has devoted her life to listening for the old patterns moving beneath modern experience: the descent and return, the dark fertile ground, the ember that endures.

A practitioner of witchcraft and spiritual traditions since her teens, Selena approaches ritual as both discipline and devotion. Her background in dance and martial arts informs her teaching not merely as movement practices, but as somatic pathways—ways the body learns courage, surrender, rhythm, and power. For her, myth is not abstract; it is lived through breath, muscle, gesture, and stillness.

Through seasonal rites, symbolic practice, contemplative storytelling, and embodied work, she creates spaces where participants enter myth as experience. Her work invites the soul to slow, the body to listen, and the individual to remember their place within the living rhythms of the natural world