Entirely separate from concerns about the site, I think your notion of the theme for a midsummer ritual is wrong.
If you look at midsummer rituals that have memetic fitness (traditions that lasted, or in neopaganism’s case that stuck weirdly quickly), most of them are sunset rituals. Things that happen at night on the shortest nights of the year, and dwell on themes of darkness. Ghost stories, things like that.
Assuming, as I think we clearly should, that that’s not a coincidence, a ritual that resonates for summer solstice should be aimed in a similar direction. It might have themes of fragility, or of near-misses personal and collective, mixed with recognition of things being good, of civilizational achievements or personal ones. (If at some point we invent the rationalist bar mitzvah it should probably be at midsummer, I feel, but I’m not sure why I think that given what I just said.)
The themes you mention of storing up energy for the winter, celebrating human accomplishment, etc., seem to me, based on my survey of existing rituals and holidays, much more appropriate for the Fall Equinox, the time of year where food is gathered and the cold days are encroaching. Competitions and skillshares, particularly, are my suggestions there, though the whole summer solstice that’s developed the last few years would port across without changes other than dropping the amorphous sunset ritual.
Entirely separate from concerns about the site, I think your notion of the theme for a midsummer ritual is wrong.
If you look at midsummer rituals that have memetic fitness (traditions that lasted, or in neopaganism’s case that stuck weirdly quickly), most of them are sunset rituals. Things that happen at night on the shortest nights of the year, and dwell on themes of darkness. Ghost stories, things like that.
Assuming, as I think we clearly should, that that’s not a coincidence, a ritual that resonates for summer solstice should be aimed in a similar direction. It might have themes of fragility, or of near-misses personal and collective, mixed with recognition of things being good, of civilizational achievements or personal ones. (If at some point we invent the rationalist bar mitzvah it should probably be at midsummer, I feel, but I’m not sure why I think that given what I just said.)
The themes you mention of storing up energy for the winter, celebrating human accomplishment, etc., seem to me, based on my survey of existing rituals and holidays, much more appropriate for the Fall Equinox, the time of year where food is gathered and the cold days are encroaching. Competitions and skillshares, particularly, are my suggestions there, though the whole summer solstice that’s developed the last few years would port across without changes other than dropping the amorphous sunset ritual.