Midsummer season between the cross-quarter days

Buttercups at Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. I saw this glorious field a while ago, while my family had a picnic on its edge. We were all fascinated and enchanted by watching a little girl of about three years old in a pretty summer dress, who "waded" all around and across the field through the flowers. Engaged by some very serious business, it seemed.   

The neo-pagans seem to be right about the primary seasonal significance of the "cross-quarter days" - those that come half-way between the Solstices and the Equinoxes - at least in England. 

These days are located around the first days of February, May, August and November; and sometimes correspond to the Christian feasts; so there is Candlemass (Imbolc); May Day (Beltane); Lammas; and Halloween/ All Hallows (All Saints) Day.

We are currently into the Midsummer season that comes between May Day and Lammas; and the change this month has been decisive, because the tress have - suddenly, it seems! - come into full leaf; and already it feels more like summer than spring. 

But May can be the most delightful of months, as everything is still fresh as spring, but with summer's abundance. 

May's special flower, the buttercup, is just beginning to wax dominant in the fields; to climax in a couple of weeks. And buttercups are perhaps, along with snowdrops, my favourite of our wild flowers.  

In particular the daylight never really ceases up-here at 55 degrees North; and the stargazing hobby must go into abeyance; as only the brightest planets and stars are visible (when there are no clouds!) against the always-twilight, never-black, sky. 

And these only from after about 10:30 pm, or even later in a couple of weeks  - at present the likes of Venus (just about, before it sets), Jupiter, Regulus, Arcturus, Vega, and Deneb. 

Unlike the Equinoxes, where the change in day length is at its most rapid; Midsummer Day - when it comes - is just a calendar date, because there is no perceptible difference in sunrise and sunset for some days either side of it. 

Here in Newcastle upon Tyne, Midsummer is dominated by an enormous travelling (gypsy) fun fair The Hoppings; which sets-up on the Town Moor for more than a week, and makes a great deal of (horrible) noise! 

So Midsummer is far from a spiritual environment, except when we get out into the countryside.