Monthly Archives: June 2017

Midsummer

Midsummer is here now,
The longest day of the year.
The sun is shining down
And springtime has now flown.
But soon winter will come
…And the battle will be fought again
To place another king
Upon his six-month throne.

~Raymond Buckland

Summer Invocation

Fireflies and summer sun
in circles round
we become as one.
Singing songs at magick’s hour
we bring the winds
and timeless powers.
Turning inward, hand in hand
we dance the hearth
to heal the land.
Standing silent, beneath the sky
we catch the fire
from out God’s eye.
Swaying breathless, beside the sea
we call the Goddess
so mote it be!

~by Trish Telesco

(This can be used as a chant, part of a spiral dance, or to invoke quarters.)

Kali Meditation For the Solstice

She is mad, Her lover is mad, and I am mad for loving Her!
This world is bewitched by the lovely Goddess.
No one can describe how lovely She is, how glorious,
how perfect Her gestures, how sudden Her moods.
Her lover, poisoned with love for her, calls out Her name
endlessly, singing Kali’s name over and over and over.
Life has its currents, cycles, tides which ebb and flow.
She looks upon them all with equanimity.
Nothing is opposite in her mind: not life, not death;
not love, not hate; not the self, not the void.
Your raft, the poet said, floats upon the sea of life.
It drifts up with the tide, and down with the ebb.
But the Goddess is there. The Goddess is always there.

~ Indian Poet Ramakrishna

On this day, when light and darkness are briefly equal, before the light grows and swells and carries the world into summer, it is good to meditate upon the ultimate falsity of all divisions. Kali, the fierce Hindu goddess, reminds us of that truth: that existence is not bound by our false dualities. There is no light, no darkness in Kali’s world. What she offers us is not a gray mixture of black and white, but a
paradoxical world in which both exists in all moments, at all points, in all ways. Life is both pain and pleasure, love and hate. Kali is beyond both, but includes both.

Meditating upon Kali is one of the great traditions of Hindu India. The paradoxes and mysteries she expresses are almost beyond words, though great poets like Ramakrishna have spent lifetimes trying. As the sun dances briefly in her perfect balance, let us join the poet in marveling at the power of the goddess.

From: Goddess Companion

The Folklore of Falling Stars

Some scholars speculate, based on common legends between various cultures around the globe, that the old practice of “wishing upon a shooting star” originates from a time when people believed that the gods would occasionally open the dome of heaven to peek in on what the mortals were doing on Earth. This opening of the dome released a star, and if one made a wish while there was still light, and before the dome slammed shut, the gods might hear and grant the wish.

In Switzerland, it was thought that shooting stars possessed the power of God and could ward off pestilence.

The Swabians believed a shooting star foretold a year of good luck.

In Chile, a shooting star is also an omen of good luck, but one must quickly pick up a stone to guarantee the luck.

In the Philipines, one must tie a knot in a handkerchief before the light is extinguished to capture the good luck of a shooting star.

Some people of Hawaiian or Japanese descent believe if you see a shooting star coming in your direction, you must open the collars/breast of your kimono to admit the good luck.

Also in Swabia, a person seeing 3 shooting stars in one night was doomed to die.

In Lithuanian folklore, it’s believed that a spinner spins a thread for each new life and attaches it to a star. At the moment of a person’s death, the thread breaks and the star falls to Earth.

The Seneca believed that pointing to a shooting star would reveal one’s location to the star, with ill effect.

Some Hispanic cultures believe that one must utter “God guide it” upon seeing a shooting star to avoid bad luck.

The Baronga culture would spit on the ground upon seeing a shooting star and cry out “go away, go away, all by yourself” to avoid bad luck.

In some parts of the Catholic deep south US, it is believed that shooting stars are souls leaving purgatory for heaven.

In Catholic Germany, it was believed that a shooting star was a suffering soul seeking prayers from those who observed it. If one recited “rest in peace” three times before the light extinguished, then the soul would be delivered from purgatory.

In some Philippine cultures, it is believed that shooting stars are the souls of drunkards which return to Earth at night to sing “do not drink, do not drink“. Each day they attempt to climb back up to heaven, but fall down each time.

Some Muslims believe shooting stars are fireballs thrown down on devils by vengeful angels.

Some old Russian cultures believe shooting stars are demons who were transformed and chased out of heaven.

In Austria, upon seeing a shooting star near one’s house, the children were brought inside and sprinkled with holy water.

It was thought in some Germanic cultures, that shooting stars were fire-breathing dragons, if you insulted or cursed one of them, they would rain stinking cheese and rubbish down upon Earth. Some believed in influencing the dragon with an offering, whereupon the passing dragon would leave a gift of ham or bacon. The fire dragon also carried money which it would sometimes drop, making people rich.

In Polish folklore, it’s thought that a falling star would drop one of three things – a treasure, a gelatinous mass, or cow dung!

Found at Telescope Reviews

This is June

“This is June, the month of grass and leaves . . . already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts, as if I might be too late. Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomena is reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and sentiments answer to the revolution of the seasons, as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We are conversant with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind.”

– Henry David Thoreau

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