Celebrating Summer Solstice June 20 2025

Tonight, we celebrate the Summer Solstice with a gathering of our friends.  We begin with a potluck supper followed by ceremony and meditation activities inviting in the light.

Summer solstice is the longest day of the year and the time of the most light.  The feeling is glorious! 

Each of us in the circle brings an energy of happiness and light that can be shared with the others in the circle, and then can be broadcast out to where ever we wish the light to go.

Part of our activity tonight will include this beautiful poem by Chandra Levy.  It begins with the words, “O Radiant sun”. The Sun pushes the light to Earth.  It is a great message for summer solstice.

A Nature Lover’s Ode

O Radiant sun

The pure light that you are, that I am

Bathe me, anoint me with the purity of your beam

I am Blessed and enlightened by our ecstatic union

Reflecting and enriching my inner realm

O playful, delicious breeze

Play me as a sacred flute

Accompanied by the strings of my delighted heart

Calling forth the Divine and harmonious notes so dear

Tantalisingly sweet, pure and clear

O creatures of creation

Delight and invite and entice me

With your myriad colours and manifestations of beauty

Sing with me that I may know your song

That we may harmonise and realise we all belong

O dearest Planet Earth

Our devoted Mother

Our precious physical home

May our frequencies align

With the sweetest and deepest of tones

May we peacefully respond, rejoice and revel

In our loving interconnection

Grateful for this life

Grateful for this love

Grateful for this resplendent reflection

By Chandra Levy

Blessings,

Judy

The Truth of Life Is In Our Hands

I was thinking about our hands and how we use our hands in healing sessions – we use them to comfort, to support, to transmit energy, to caress, to tap, and even to hold back energy.  Our hands often act, it seems, of their own accord.  This means that they act instinctively, and that they do not act from the brain.  Think about the number of times that you have said one thing and that your hands have done another thing – a variation on the right and left hand not knowing what the other is doing.  In fact, sometimes our brain does not know what our hands are doing.

Think about the times you are happy.  You will clap your hands.  You don’t think about it, you just do it.  Or, if you are sad, or excited, or extremely moved, you may fold your hands over your heart.  If you are scared, you may protect yourself by placing your hands over your stomach or belly; or, you may wrap    your arms around your self and and pat your arms to comfort yourself.  

When someone is hurting, we instinctively put our hands on their back or their head or their shoulders and stroke the person to comfort them.  We use our hands to wave at people, and show them we are happy to see them.  We even use our hands to salute to show honour to people.  When we mean no harm, we show our hands, palm up.

Nature gave us five digits on our hands.  Five is the number for getting things done.  The thumb is almost useless by itself. However, when we use it with the four fingers, we have a tool that allows us to dig, to pick fruit and vegetables, to make meals, to bake, to build, to sew, to create, and to love.
The hands, then become interesting because they will always show us, and others, exactly what is going on in our physical and emotional body.  And, that physical and emotional feeling may be quite different than what our mental body (mind, ego) is saying.  The hands show our gratitude to Creator, and gratitude to those around us, by the service that they do for our selves and for others.  Our hands are about life. The truth of our life is in our hands. And, that is a good thing.

Blessings,

Judy

On Love

 

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Mother Teresa

One of the things that makes me the happiest in life, is when people come to our house and tell me that they love the feeling in our house; that they feel sad to leave our house.   I saw this quote from Mother Theresa and I believe that many people feel this way when they leave our house.

May you find people that feel this way in your life.

Blessings,

Judy

Suffering Is Not The Enemy

 

We are constantly encouraged to reject what is unpleasant, disappointing or difficult. 'What's all this suffering? Let's be happy! Have fun!' But our suffering is not our enemy. It is only through a relationship with my pain, my sadness, that I can truly know and touch the opposite—my pleasure, my joy, and my happiness.  - Claude AnShin Thomas, “Conceptions of Happiness”

Blessings,

Judy

Human Kind

 

The picture says:   Human Kind.  Be Both.

"We’re not meant to be vehicles of destruction, but rather the very embodiment of love & light and compassion, manifest."

I recently had an experience where people were not very kind to me or to each other.  I wondered why they were like that.  Then, I met their manager.  He was not nice to any one.  When people say that influence comes from the top, “people” were very correct in this case.  

What makes someone be unkind to those around him (or her)?  Is it their home life?  Is it that they think acting mean makes them powerful?  Or, is it that they don’t like people in general?  What ever the reason, I like to think that most people are kind and that most people want to help others.

Blessings,

Judy

Ten Commandments From Bertrand Russell

 

The Poster says:

1. Do not Lie to yourself.

2. Do not lie to other people unless they are exercising tyranny.

3. When you think it is your duty to inflict pain, scrutinize your reasons closely.

4. When you desire power, examine yourself closely to see why you deserve it.

5. When you have power, use it to build up people, not to constrict them.

6. Do not attempt to live without vanity for this is impossible, but chose the right audience from which to seek admiration.

7. Do not think of yourself as a wholly contained unit.

8. Be reliable.

9. Be just.

10. Be good-natured.

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I saw this poster and realized that it is quite close to the shamanic code.  After more scrutiny, I realized that it is close to many codes, including the code of the Knights of the Round Table.  I realize that it is not exact.  However, I find it interesting that several codes are so close.  I wonder then, why so many people feel the need to be bullies or tyrants.

What are your thoughts?

Blessings,

Judy

Lion on Love

                

One of my friends sent me this picture.  I looked at it, and thought it was great, and then deleted it.  Then, when I was “Stumbling”, I came across the picture again.  Again, I thought it was great, and hit the button to move past it.  Everything moved, and then shifted back to the picture.  Ah!  I realized that I was being given this picture for a reason.

I sat with the picture and meditated.  I used the mantra, Loving Kindness, to relax and move into that place of peace and stillness.  I was hovering in that place where thoughts come up to you, and you simply wave them away, without really seeing them.  And then a much larger, dark figure walked into my meditation silence.  He coughed to draw attention to himself.  I looked at him, and said, “Can I help you?”

The Lion moved into my consciousness, fully, and said he had some information for me.  I settled back and said that I would be glad to hear it.  He began speaking.

“We often hear in the great whispers that go around through the air, that you two leggeds do not think that we love.  Love, as we understand it, is when you totally commit to protect and to honour those charges around you; that you realize that without them, you would feel lost and perhaps incomplete.  We lions love absolutely in the nature of our kind. 

We are different than two leggeds because we do not intentionally plan treachery – to hurt or to kill – the ones we love.  WE work to protect them. 

And, so it is that we are different.  We say to you, “judge us not as dumb beasts”.”

                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Blessings,

Judy