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Monthly Archives: June 2016
solstice
A rare astronomical event is happening tonight for the first time in decades
The longest day of the year is upon us.
This Monday brings the summer solstice, which marks the beginning of the season and a chance to soak in copious amounts of sunshine.
The solstice is celebrated by a variety of cultures worldwide. Every year, thousands gather at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, to rejoice the prospect of sunny summer days.
As if this day wasn’t already a wonderful excuse to run outside, Monday will also feature a full “Strawberry” moon — the name comes from the belief that strawberry-picking season is at its peak during this time of the year, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Monday’s full moon, which is also called the Mead Moon or the Rose Moon, is the only night in the month when the moon is in the sky all evening long. Normally, throughout the June month, the moon shares some time with the daytime sky, according to Sky & Telescope.
The full moon also marks an astronomical event that hasn’t happened since 1948, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. That was the last time the full “Strawberry” moon “landed smack on” the June solstice.
The June solstice won’t coincide with a full moon again until June 21, 2062, based on calculations using Universal Time, according to EarthSky.
On June 20, the summer sun will reach its most northerly point, directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer at 23 degrees 27 minutes north latitude. For North American time zones this event happens at 6:34 p.m. EDT, 5:34 p.m. CDT, 4:34 p.m. MDT, and 3:34 p.m. PDT, Sky & Telescope reports.
Some online calculators can help you figure out when sunrise and sunset will happen in your area.
This time of year is celebrated not only in different cultures, but also in literature.
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer,” author F. Scott Fitzgerald writes in “The Great Gatsby.”
This is a strawberry moon
Dancing at Stonehenge at 4th full moon since spring equinox on summer solstice
End of the World
I love this video and this young man is going straight to the feet of God for well earned blessings. Love, peace, compassion are what we need. Kindness, gentleness and thoughtfulness round it out. I bet you can think of more. Whether or not you grew up with this qualities in your lives or not, there is still time for you to learn them. You can learn them and pass them on to others. They will learn and pass them on to others.
I don’t want to give you just words, which are easy to spout so let me give you an example. Please forgive me for using an example from my own life. I found my late husband dead in our home one evening. All of the usual things happened. After a couple of days, I asked my stepson to take me to the bookstore. I looked and looked and found, The Courage to Grieve. The associate wrapped it up and said she was sorry for my loss. It was a piece of kindness for me. With everything going on, I didn’t open the book for several more days. The associate had tucked a bookmark inside of the book, on friends. There was a piece of compassion and so it goes.
Every one of us has an opportunity to give little pieces away of these life’s building blocks away to family, friends or strangers. Without a lot of work or effort we can make the world easier, happier and more forgiving for many people.
Nameste
Barbara
I agree with this thought
May you be earning good karma
Our actions matter
Boy Accused of Being Witch
Where ignorance prevails, where education is almost none existent, anything “different” is seen as dangerous, and prejudice grows.
Where prejudice grows, people are seen as “other” and not as human, and fear will follow.
Where fear lives, persecution will follow, as the feared must be eliminated and driven out.
Prejudice, fear and ignorance have been around for centuries. Where these three blights exist, persecution will follow, affecting old and young, men and women, perceived as “different”.
Where persecution is allowed to thrive, where people are not seen as human, as individuals, but merely as undesirables and labels, murder will follow.
From ignorance, prejudice. From prejudice, fear. From fear, persecution and, almost inevitably, death.
For centuries, people with knowledge of plants and trees, of animals and insects, have been seen as “witches” and those lacking such knowledge have sought to eliminate them.
In the 21st Century, that the triple blight of ignorance, prejudice and fear are allowed to cause such suffering is itself a crime against humanity.
We must teach that knowledge is desirable; healthy even. We must learn to look past prejudicial labels to the sameness that is in each human, man, woman and, most of all, children, who have not yet been corrupted into giving up the good in themselves which is the heart of being human. We must learn to overcome fear in favor of tolerance and understanding.
Only together will Humanity survive.
Namaste,
Barbara
3 Quote 3 Day Challenge
Hello everyone. This is my last day for quotes. This has been a fun experience for us all to share and my thanks to Horty for including me and to all who chose to participate.
I nominate Joss, lucid gypsy, and KOH
Have a great time.
Quote#1: ” I argue that we deserve the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women’s appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically.”
—Naomi West, author of The Beauty Myth
Quote#2:
” To know how to say what others
know how to think
is what makes men poets or sages;
and to dare to say
what others only dare to think
makes men
martyrs or reformers—or both.”
—Elizabeth Charles
Quote #3: The high,
the low
all of creation,
God gives to humankind
to use.
If this privilege is misused,
God’s Justice permits creation
to punish humanity.
—Hildegard of Bingen, Catholic nun
Hildegard of Bingen
Meaning in not an Empty Word
Often creative people throw up their hands in despair of finding meaning in our postmodern world. But the find they can not give up on meaning. The word, and the illusory nature of meaning can not be ignored. It is not an empty word. It has a vibration of its own.
As meaning means something, an authentic life is possible. At the last instant, creative people return with a vengeance to the belief that a meaningful life can be led and that they are obliged to choose that way.
In our hearts, we opt for life. As Schubert-Soldern aphoristically put it, “To understand life, we must contrast it with death.” We force life to mean while we live, to have an authenticity. While I live, I can love, I can continue to learn things, I can help in some way, and I can create.
Opting to matter does not answer every meaning question, nor will it compete your depression treatment therapy. It can not make a boring meeting more interesting or a mistake in a novel an interesting mistake.
A painter standing in front of a blank white canvas, an actor facing a mass audition, a singer performing a new composition for the first time wonder if all their efforts matter. Yes, they do. If they touch the soul of one person in a positive manner, they touch the world. This is important to remember for the gray days. This means that every day, sunny and inspired or grey and melancholy,we have a responsibility to live with meaning. You chose to be creative, an artist. Therefore, you have the responsibility to make your life matter. And be aware that each of them does.
Hate the rules
Thinking out of the box
3 Quote 3 Day Challenge
I am asking these people to join the quote challenge:
Xena, Sedge808 and Carol Carisle
Quote #1 “Eventually I lost interest in trying to control my life, to make things happen in a way that I thought I wanted them to be. I began to practice surrendering to the universe and finding out what “it” wanted me to do.”
—Shakti Gawain, spiritual healer and teacher, writer
Shakati Gawain
Quote#2: “I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.”
—Amy Tan, novelist
Amy Tan
Quote #3:” I ‘ve learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not on our circumstances.”
—Martha Washington, The First “First Lady” of America
Flag of the First 13 colonies of America
Remembering the Names
I wasn’t going to publish the names…there were so many. Then I decide that they deserved to be remembered, indeed honored. Each of then was young, at the beginning of this sojourn. Careers and school waiting for each of them. The name I won’t say is the perpetrators because I don’t want to encourage those unstable minds who commit crimes so history will remember them. I am sorry that their families and friends are experiencing this overwhelming grief and sorrow. Though a widow, I can only express a tiny bit of the hell you must be suffering. I am sorry.
For those on the fence about LGBT members of society, each of these people were in school or working. Let us remember the injured also. There is a large list of people who need your healing prayers. Their doctors need prayers for steady hands, wise decisions, and an angel on their shoulder. It will take the loving hearts of many people to get the injured up and about. They may face some discrimination. Pray that people will look at them and just see an injured human being. For their families and friends, I pray for you that you will have the strength to give them all the care they will need. May people remember that you will need care also. May you be able, in time, to forgive the shooter and the NRA.
May God bless and heal you.
May your lives be surrounded
with love, harmony and peace,
May your hearts
strengthened and goodness come
to you for the remainder of you lives.
—The Rebel
3 Day Quote Challenge
The lovely Dr Rex, my dear and wonderful friend, has nominated me for the # Days 3 Quotes challenge. I thank her for the thought and the inspiration, and encourage you to check out her website.
RULES
Very simple, not too much work …. Post three quotes for three consecutive days, and nominate three new bloggers to take on the challenge each day and thank you for your nomination.
I would like to pass the The three Day Challenge on to three other wonderful bloggers. Just thank the person and look for your quotes. They can be from books, something someone has said or your grandfathers favorite saying. Three quotes a day for three days. Enjoy everyone.
I nominate Maxima, Heartafire and OldPoet56
Quote #1: ” The effect of having other interests beyond the domestic works well. The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and be genuine may be one’s own appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.”
—Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart, aviatrix
Quote #2: “I have an almost complete disregard of precedent and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done…I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind. I go for anything new that might improve the past. ”
—Clara Barton
Clara Barton, nurse and philanthropist
Quote #3: ” The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
—-Quote by Anne Frank
Observing the night sky
How Many More?
I don’t have an answer for the question, How Many More?, and I wish I did. What I do know is that we need more music, art, conversation, love, compassion, caring, random acts of compassion. We need to take care our ourselves and our own issues remembering there is not one of us that is perfect. We need to heal our own blemishes first before even beginning to think about someone else’s problems.
Kindness should come before boasting, healing hands before violent ones, medicines to cure diseases should come before guns. Food for every person should come before Christian Dior bags (and I love them). Housing should come before a luxury car. Trees to improve the air we breathe should come before chemicals in our food. Clean water should come before stock dividends. Helping someone should come before what color their skin is, what their sexual preference is, or what spiritual path they follow.
Peace should come before war, being a part of the family of man should be more important than how different someone seems to be. Action is more important than talking about mass shootings and doing kindnesses is more important than thinking these events should never have happened. Perhaps most important, those who have been taught not to think for themselves and not to speak must learn to speak once again or for the first time.
Unlearning not to speak
Blizzards of paper
in slow motion
sift through her
In nightmares she suddenly recalls
a class she signed up for
but forgot to attend.
Now it is too late.
Now it is time for finals:
losers will be shot.
Phrases of men who lectured her
drift and rustle in piles:
Why don’t you speak up?
Why are you shouting”
You have the wrong answer,
wrong line, wrong face.
They tell her she is womb-man,
babymachine, mirror, and penis-poor,
a dish of synthetic strawberry ice cream
rapidly melting.
She grunts to a halt.
She must learn to speak
starting with I
Starting with we
starting as the infant does
with her own true hunger
and pleasure
and rage.
—Marge Piercy, feminist poet and novelist
World Peace everywhere for everyone
idealisticrebel 