Summer solstice is traditionally a time of celebration.

The sun is warm, crops are growing, days are long and everything feels good. Traditional Solstice celebrations include huge feasts, music and dancing to honour the sun – last year Em and I were in Spain and went to a huge community gathering where we leapt over a bonfire, danced with witches and devils and shared a gigantic paella.

This year, we had spent the entire weekend drinking and dancing at her cousin’s wedding, so by Sunday evening, we were ready for something a little more downbeat and intimate.

On the spur of the moment, we grabbed some wood and a blanket, and headed to the west coast.

We ended up at Crosby beach, where Anthony Gormley’s Another Place is installed. This quietly inspiring piece of public art is made up of 100 cast iron figures, embedded in the sand, stretching for 2.5km along the beach. They stand upright, staring out to sea, where the Mersey meets the Irish sea. It’s a major shipping route for industrial ships coming in and out of the Liverpool docks.

It’s not a romantic place, more bleak, with a forgotten kind of feeling, and the figures, all facing the same way, all equal in height, had an eerie quality on this windy Sunday evening. The beach was deserted…though I couldn’t quite tell if Em and I were completely alone.

Last new year’s eve, with some friends, we had written notes for things we were grateful for, things we wished to leave behind, and new energy we wished to bring into our lives.

Now, we wanted to check in with those resolutions, talk about how the year was shaping up, and think about how things might change as the days shortened throughout the rest of the year.

It was interesting looking back over the past six months. On the one hand it feels like only yesterday that we were celebrating with friends and making plans for 2015 – yet so much has happened. I launched the Alternative Tarot Course on the 2nd January, kickstarting an exciting year for Little Red Tarot. Since then I’ve crossed the USA and met some of my favourite tarot friends, written another book (watch this space…) and launched a tarot social network. It’s been a time of high energy, risk, fun, impulse and of realising that I really can take this anywhere I want to go.

I reiterated my desire to tame my inner fire and make calmer, more grounded, more heart-centred decisions backed up by solid intentions – perhaps my biggest project ofd all this year.

Em and I have made some huge decisions this year – decisions we’re still sitting with, still feeling out, and haven’t yet ‘announced’. Again, together, we’re becoming more and more aware of the power we have to create any kind of life we choose – a power that can sometimes feel too much…but mostly feels just right. And we talked about the joy of co-creation – a huge surprise to two individualists unused to compromise or partnership.

Of course, we drew tarot cards for the six months ahead, each asking what we needed to learn or ‘channel’ for the remainder of 2015. We used the Wildwood Tarot.

I drew the Ace of Stones.

This is all about the connection of great ideas with material reality – reality which isn’t limiting, but strengthening. Grounding inspiration and passion in order to create something real, something lasting. It’s also about that unseen connection between my own existence and the immense power of the universe, of nature, of my environment. The universe is ready to help me, I only need to ask, and be open to it.

For me, this is also a card of commitment. This is an opportunity to really do the work, in the sense of signing up to something solid and real that won’t happen overnight. In terms of the ideas I have for my business and the plans Em and I are making together, it was the perfect card. It’s not glamorous or exciting, it’s weighty, strong and real. And I know that’s what I need this year.

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