It’s July, and peak summer here in the Northern Hemisphere. While I am not a fan of summer (I am a winter person, and am happiest when it’s cold and dark), I understand that many people love summer and thrive in the light and heat. Also, I understand basic science, and know that we cannot survive without the sun, so I can appreciate the results, if not the experience, of the summer season—summer sun means a good harvest in the fall, which means having enough food to survive the winter.

Community Altar July 2018—Sunna

Putting together the altar really brought home to me how much I work with the cool energies of water and air. I have exactly one warm-colored candle holder, and three red crystals—one piece of amber, and two pieces of red jasper. I have always liked the energy of jasper, both green and red, and never thought much about it until it dawned on me that I was born in Jasper County. Sometimes I’m really quick to figure things out; other times, it takes me 50-some years.

Prayer to Sunna

Hail, Sunna!
You, who bring light,
bring warmth,
bringslife!

We greet you each day:
The joy of dawn as light fills the sky
and hope fills our hearts
for the day ahead.

We bless you each day:
The sun at high noon
gives us the strength to live
in the creative fullness of being.

We thank you each day:
Sunset draws the day
to a close,
and sends us to our well-earned rest.

We thank you, Sunna, for your gifts of light, warmth, joy, and life, and we offer you our gifts of grateful hearts and passionate souls.

May Sunna bless you with joy, vitality, and creative passion!

Note: The wonderful artwork of Sunna is by AnnaIceFlames on DeviantArt.

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Golden Bough
– Elinor Wylie

These lovely groves of fountain-trees that shake
A burning spray against autumnal cool
Descend again in molten drops to make
The rutted path a river and a pool.

They rise in silence, fall in quietude,
Lie still as looking-glass to every sense
Save where their lion-colour in the wood
Roars to miraculous heat and turbulence.

the type of lover i need
~ rupi kaur

i need someone
who knows struggle
as well as i do
someone
willing to hold their feet in my lap
on days it is too difficult to stand
the type of person who gives
exactly what  i need
before i even know i need it
the type of lover who hears me
even when i do not speak
is the type of understanding
i demand

Two Roads, etc.
~ Dorothy Walters

For Carolyn Kizer
(Carolyn Kizer’s poem which inspired Walters was the Daily Poem for July 16, 2018 and can be read here)

Here I am,
Novice of many years,
Still writing poems
Full of betrayal and lost love,
Forever turning the events of my life
In my hand
Like a strange stone
To be examined in the light
Of Tragedy.

She, meanwhile,
With a shrug of one shoulder,
Says,
“By the time we reach middle life,
We’ve all been deserted and robbed,”
And goes on to the next stanza.

Well, none would dispute her.
But to take the news so calmly.
To let go the bar
And go whizzing through space
Humming a little tune to oneself.

True, she’s lived deep:
Slept with famous poets,
Brows and all,
Got divorced once or twice,
Was rejoiced at seeing afar
The naked genitals of Chinese laborers
When she was “very young”.

When I was very young,
I scanned the diagrams
Of ancient medical texts.
And was properly shaken.
Poets were names in books,
Their brows the windy heights,
Unscaled, of accompanying illustrations.
In that country, life was real
Only the way a poem is real
When it is about to be written.

Merwin said: “This way the dust,
That way the dust,”
And Yeats, earlier,
“Everything we look upon is blest,”
Both, of course, being perfectly correct.