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This week: Edited by: Sophy New Year  
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Hi, I'm Sophy New Year ~ your Spiritual Newsletter Editor this week.
The recognition and celebration of the Summer Solstice, which occurs this Thursday at 2:06pm WDC Time (in the northern hemisphere), comes from our pagan ancestors, and is the focus of the Spiritual Newsletter this week.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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The Longest Day - Happy Summer Solstice!
The word "Solstice" is derived from two Latin words: "sol" meaning sun, and "sistere," to cause to stand still. This is because as the summer solstice approaches, the noonday sun rises higher and higher in the sky on each successive day. On the day of the solstice, it rises an imperceptible amount compared to the day before, and in this sense, it "stands still." Solstice is also referred to as Midsummer because it falls roughly in the middle of the growing season throughout much of Europe. Whatever it’s called, on or around June 21 the daytime hours are at a maximum in the Northern hemisphere, and the darkness of night is at a minimum as we welcome the first day of summer.
In pre-historic times, summer was a joyous time of the year, as you can well imagine. In most places the snow disappeared; the ground thawed out; warm temperatures returned; flowers were blooming; herbs were harvested for medicinal and other uses; food was easier to find. The crops had already been planted and would be harvested in the months to come. And although many months of warm weather remained before the return to winter, the people noticed that after Midsummer the days began to shorten, and they knew that the return of the cold season was inevitable. So they planned and toiled and tuned their daily lives to this natural rhythm to life.
This time of year between the planting and harvesting of the crops was also the traditional month for weddings. This is because many ancient peoples believed that the "grand union" of the Goddess and God occurred in early May at the Beltane Fires. Since it was unlucky to compete with the deities, many couples delayed their weddings until June, which remains a favorite month for marriage even today. In some traditions, newly wed couples were fed dishes and beverages that featured honey for the first month or “moon” of their married life, to encourage love and fertility. The surviving trace of this tradition lives on in the name given to the holiday immediately after the ceremony: The Honeymoon.
Other pagan festivals and holidays were centered on seasons and nature as well. Equinoxes, Winter Solstice, and other observances were dependent upon the rhythm and cycles of nature. In the Hebrew Apocryphal Book of Wisdom, which is attributed to King Solomon, it is written that, “To know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements; the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons, the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars is a gift from God." Thus humanity and nature were seen as intricately connected even during the early days of Judaism, in spite of the later demonization of the natural world as a result of misinterpretations of the Eden story, and the rejection of earth-based religions and worship of other gods in favor of patriarchy and monotheism. But not before they impacted the formation and rituals of modern religions, including Christianity.
For instance, it is no coincidence that the birth of Christ is celebrated December 25, near the time of the observance of Yule and Winter Solstice, when the northern hemisphere is at its darkest and in anticipation of the return of the Sun. All Saints Day derived first in connection with and later in opposition to Samhain and All Hallows’ Eve. And most remarkable of all is that the Council of Nicea decreed in 325 that “Easter was to fall upon the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Vernal Equinox,” a time of renewal and rebirth by the pagans. How amazing that the Equinox would even be acknowledged by the early Church in such a way, let alone connected to its highest holy day! It appears that Christians, in an attempt to reach the pagans in Western Europe, adopted many of their customs and rituals into practice after Christianizing them, as a way to make Christianity more palatable to the masses. So the festival of Summer Solstice, formerly celebrated on June 24, transformed into the much more acceptable feast of St. John the Baptist, which kept some of the rituals and practices in tact, including the original date of the 24th.
The rituals of the earliest religions and even of the early Judeo-Christian church, which were essentially based on the human understandings and interpretations of the rhythms of nature, helped people handle life’s ups and downs as they lived out their daily lives, and as such became meaningful in religious and spiritual ways. We internalized the rhythm of life in our rituals, not only in their practice, but also in our own emotions, as we came to tie the sadness of Lent and the delight of Easter to the tempo of the natural world. In other words, back then we didn’t separate our spirituality from the baser elements of nature and body.
But over time, as we became civilized and removed ourselves from our caves and moved into carefully designed houses of brick and wood, we cut ourselves off from nature, and thus from its rhythms. We moved further and further away from the created world, seemingly in fear of it, choosing civilization over nature, as if the myth of our exit from Eden had more to do with fear of sin than with sin itself. And that has been to our peril, as nature began to be associated with evil and we cut ourselves off from the solstices and equinoxes and other rhythms of nature, locking ourselves away from it in our civilized, temperature-controlled environments.
So what can we do to remedy this? How can we reclaim our bond with nature and the rhythms that unite us all? How do we reconnect and engage with the core realities we inherited as biological creatures? Nature... the earth... the sky... stars... the sea, these are the basic realities out of which we evolved and were created. How do we get back into sync with them? For me, healthy spirituality – make that healthy living, period – is manifested in relationships with the world around us. In nature, I recognize a power greater than myself, and a connectedness to others. But our lives are often so busy and distracted with things and activities that any sense of natural rhythm is usually lost, and our sense of wonder and purpose is often replaced with even more activity and commotion. The remedy? Take a walk, turn off the AC and open the windows, sit outside and watch what goes on in your own backyard. Hug a tree. Or maybe celebrate the return of summer by writing a poem about it.  Or perhaps you could write about some of your experiences that serve to reestablish a reconnection with nature. Or how about writing about whether or not it is a worthwhile endeavor to try to do so?
Until next time! Sophy New Year
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Here are a few items about Summer Solstice from the site.
First up, a few poems:
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And a short story:
Here are 3 more from animatqua -- Summer Solstice stories based on the Maiden, Mother, Crone phases of a woman:
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This one was written for a horror newsletter, offering information about the basics of solistice while also offering it as background inspiration:
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And from the other side of the calendar year, a poem about Winter Solstice:
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
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Thank you for the great emails and responses to my last newsletter about writing our spiritual journeys, and for sharing some of your own work with me (which I am also sharing below). Glad it resonated with so many of you!
From pcaneday
Thanks Sophy,
Great Newsletter. I am new to WDC. I've recently found it in myself to get serious about my writing after about 15 years of saying how much I like to write but never really getting it done. Your newsletter is timely for me, as I've been dusting off those old journals and essays I've written over the years. I find that writing about things spiritual and the journey is where I am pulled. I only have one item posted on WDC so far, an essay I wrote a couple years ago when I went through a particularly tough time "Invalid Item" . I'd love any thoughts and critiques on this from people interested in this area of writing. I plan on posting more "Missives" as I struggle to keep my quill sharpened and scratching away at the parchment. Any feedback would be most appreciated. Thanks for the support in this newsletter!
Patrick
Thanks for your comment, Patrick, and for sending the link to your "Missives." Good luck with your writing!
From Dreams - Anon, who are you? 
Hello Sophy,
I enjoyed your newsletter this week. I write a lot about Islam, and my relationship with God is always in there somewhere.
I have just returned to w.com after some time and wrote a piece about the importance of prayer. I have come to the conclusion that when you make a statement Allah tests you on that, and so I now feel I am being challenged, and praying is that bit hard(strange I know), but I am determined to find away through and stay true to what I wrote here (if your interested) "Invalid Item" .
Glad you found your way back to WDC, Dreams. And thank you for sharing your item about prayer. Good luck with the challenges you face, and with your journey.
From weeowl flying free!
HI! I enjoyed reading this newsletter this week. I too have gone back recently to my journals of the past. I see how I've developed over the last ten years. I see how my journals today are more in depth and definitely more spiritual. I noticed that I've always been a humanitarian, putting myself in place of the homeless, the neglected children, and then I've written some from Spirit, lost it, and found it exactly when I needed those words of strength and encouragement to reread it and say "Who wrote this?" and then realize "I did! That's my handwriting!" It may be my handwriting, but it's Spirit's message.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Weeowl, and your insight about the inspiration of the Spirit. I've had the same convicting experience looking at my past words, and I am sure others can relate as well.
From raynstorm
Great Newsletter! I commend you for your ability to review past writings with such grace and maturity. Whenever I run across something I've written long ago, too many times I just become ashamed of what I've written and can't read anymore. Maybe if I can get past the "I cannot believe I wrote this!" moment, I can reflect on how I've grown as well.
Thanks Raynstorm! It's certainly not easy to look back at old writings, and some of my old journals and poems make me cringe with shame, lol. But out of respect for who I was then, and how "she" helped me become who I am now, I do think it is a worthwhile endeavor.
From hdelphyne
Hello Sophy,
You've pulled together a wonderful collection of writings for the newsletter. I appreciate the rich diversity of stories generated by various spiritual paths. Thank you for the time and effort you've given to this. Thea
Thanks Thea - glad you enjoyed the writings I collected and featured. I do try to showcase a broad spectrum of religious and spiritual paths, and am grateful it is appreciated. |
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Spiritual: June 20, 2007 Issue [#1777]
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