Acqua di San Giovanni // Saint John's Water // Solstice Magic

​Come learn some Italian ancestral summer solstice magic and make acqua di san giovanni, or Saint John's water at New Roots Community Garden in Queens!

​In Southern Italy, people celebrate the birthday of St John the Baptist - June 24 - with festivals of flowers and fire.

​In pre-Christian Italy, the summer solstice (just a few days before, June 20 or 21), was a celebration of the Sun and of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, the fire of the home. As Christianity seeped in, people adapted their traditions to fit the church's demands, and those celebrations were given to Saint John, an ascetic who lived in the wild and baptized Jesus. The plant Saint John's Wort, known for many centuries in that land as iperico, was given his name too, as it begins its sunny blooms around that time.

​Saint John's water is a practice of turning the power of the sun at its height in the year into good luck, blessing, and protection. It's traditionally prepared the night of June 23, to be used on June 24, so that's what we'll do. We'll talk stories of grandma magic, solstice celebration, harvest flowers from the garden and make our magic waters.