There is a moment, somewhere around the summer solstice, when the year feels like it is holding its breath. The light lingers. The garden is at its most unruly and beautiful. Everything that was a seed or a bud or a tentative shoot back in spring is now fully, abundantly itself.
That moment is Litha.
Litha is one of the eight Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year, the midsummer festival that marks the summer solstice, usually around the 20th or 21st of June. It is the longest day, the point at which the sun reaches its highest arc in the sky before beginning, very slowly and very gently, its journey back towards the dark. For those who follow the Wheel of the Year, it is a time of celebration, of gratitude, of sitting in the fullness of the season and letting it be enough.
Here at Elsie Moss Botanical, it is also a time for our Litha collection.
This year's range has been a long time in the making, not least because the candle took several test batches to get exactly right. The Litha candle is something a little different from our usual home fragrance offerings: it has been specifically designed to work both indoors and outside in the garden, and the blend of lemongrass, petitgrain, sweet basil and cedarwood was carefully chosen not just for its bright, herbaceous scent, but for the natural insect-repelling properties that lemongrass, basil and cedarwood all carry. Light it on the patio table as the evening draws in and it will do more than smell wonderful.
The rest of the collection, our room spray, reed diffuser, aromatherapy blend and soap bar, carries a related but distinct blend: lime, coriander and clary sage, with a base of cedarwood. It is zesty and bright at first, with a warm, herbal depth that reveals itself slowly. The coriander in particular is something special in this blend. It is an oil that most people know from the kitchen, but in an aromatherapy context it has a warmth and a clarity that feels entirely right for the peak of summer.
The Litha collection launches in early June and will be available until the end of August. As with all our seasonal ranges, once it is gone, it is gone, and we would hate for you to miss it.
You can find the full collection on the website from early June. If you are in Chesterfield, come and find us in store: smell it for yourself, take your time, and choose your favourite way to bring a little summer solstice energy into your home.
The wheel is turning. Summer is here. We hope you savour every last minute of it.
