Summer solstice 2026

Storm Valkyrie: The first quarter phase of the strawberry moon on 21st June 2026. This is the Summer Solstice and a significant time. It's going to be the longest day of the year. This will last until well into night, making golden sunshine very large and brightening the night. It also means the Midsummer night will be the shortest night of the year. Night (hours of darkness) will last for about 6 hours. The sun sets at 9:45 pm but even so, it will still be very light. Sunrise will happen at 4:29 but it would already be very light then. 

Bare in mind that twilights will be brighter and light before the sun appears, as the sunrise and sunsets at angles further north, because the summer horizon appears different, due to the journey of the year. These are called "shallow sunsets." The Northern Hemisphere is tilted 23.5 towards the sun. 

Shadow Girl: Nights during this time of year isn't really that dark. 

Storm Valkyrie: And this year, coinciding with the Summer Solstice is Fathers Day! 

Shadow Girl: A big double celebration for all of you sun worshippers. You can go out in your Boho summer dress and do some LARPing at a fairy festival, and then you'll visit Stonehenge! 

Storm Valkyrie: You would stay indoors, my dear! Typical of you in the shade, bingeing on cookies when you're watching horror films. If it's raining, I would just wear my boots and have a flask of hot tea. Oh and I forgot, Rayne of She Wolf Night and Luna of Blood Strawberry will each look forward to the full moon! 

Shadow Girl: LOL I will stay at home on the 21st June to watch the new season of House of the Dragon! My dad is getting a roast dinner and car materials. 

Storm Valkyrie: I will light a candle in memory of my late father. It will be on Sunday, which means the shops and restaurants will be closed. So everyone else, what are your plans for the 21st June?

Storm Valkyrie ☀️

World Environment Day

 As it's World Environment Day today, I wanted to briefly add something about animals quickly. 

Nagatitan Chaiyaphumensis is the name of a newly discovered dinosaur. It's fossil was found recently in Southeast Asia. It's a sauropod herbivore with a long neck. Believed to be so far the biggest dinosaur to walk the ground. Another species of Spinosaurus Mirabilis was found in the Sahara Desert in the region of Niger. It's been nicknamed "Hell Heron" although it hunted and ate mostly fish. Another species, Doolysaurus huhmin was found among the Aphae Islands, which is a cute story as this is a complete entire baby dinosaur, named after an animated character Dooly the Dinosaur from South Korea. 

In the UK is a magical sight of orange Painted Lady butterflies. These are a migrating butterfly that crosses to the UK every Spring and Summer. Among the insects, the Painted Lady butterflies travel thousands of miles. They return when the seasons turn cool in September to avoid the harsh winters. 

Ospreys and nightingales have been making a successful comeback in the UK. 

Worrying news about a rare white tailed eagle disappeared over the North Yorkshire Moors, and the satellite tag worn by this magnificent young bird has stopped working. Such birds have been part of a wildlife conservation, and police were informed, treating it as suspicious. I hope the chick is ok.

Storm Valkyrie

Helping garden visitors

During a heatwave, everyone is advised to stay indoors and put on sunscreen if they go out. Many people actually work outside and have shared comments in chat. Always bring something to keep you cool and this includes water, sunglasses, hats and more items to bring shade. Pets are supposed to be kept indoors, especially dogs. However, people like to take their dogs out for midday walks! 

What's more is plants and wild animals suffer too. Often these creatures come near the houses at night, but during a heatwave, they search for places to hide from the extreme sunlight, and they look for something to drink. You can help them by placing the following in your garden, back yard, balcony, window space, front door, flower boxes outside and even in parks.

Fresh food such as sliced fruits: grapes, apples, melons, pears. Also sliced cucumbers. Pick moist food instead of dry food. 

Birds need something cool too. Don't put out fatty suet in shapes of balls and blocks, as these melt like chocolate. Instead bring non-melting suet cakes. They also will have mealworms, and the best are live ones for richness in nutrients.   

What wildlife needs is a drink. Put small shallow dishes and trays of water out and clean bird baths. Make sure to clean the dishes each day to avoid germs. Leave places with wild growing grass and messy leaves to provide natural shade, which becomes small forests for tiny animals. 

Advice: If you find tired bees struggling on the ground, give them a small amount of sugar water. Just remember to avoid using brown sugar. 

Storm Valkyrie 

Dark night of the soul 3

In the early days of becoming a psychic medium, I didn't understand how to practice it. Many things happened during those rough times, linked to my awakening and journey to become who I am now. There's so many different pieces of the experience that I need to break it all down in short parts. It's been requested that I discuss more about the negative entities, sightings of the unknown, and also about the strain on my health. The latter is mostly about a diet I went on, which I now call the "ghost diet". I plan to talk about this here.

One of the spirits that came through at the beginning of my journey was a kind person, a loved one, basically a friend who passed away long ago. Was it really him? I believed it was. He was able to communicate using the pendulum as a type of planchette for spelling out words and letters. He used this to make a few short sentences even. We established that he spin the clockwise pendulum for "yes" and anticlockwise for "no". Soon I no longer needed the pendulum. He was such a sweet natured spirit that he became real like a living person who I could actually hear and see! As he became visible, I started conversing with him, but no one else could see him but me. He was worried about my health. He wanted me to avoid poisons and toxins in food and drink.

He got me started on a diet of healthy eating. He told me to replace chocolate and biscuits for fruit and a malt loaf, which tasted sticky and bitter, although I got used to it. He then wanted me to replace tea with coffee without sugar in it. He wanted me to follow his guidance in what I ate, even helping me select the safe foods. Then he wanted me to space out my foods from one snack on malt loaf here and there, to a cooked meal four hours later, nothing for two hours and that would be coffee, then a small helping of yogurt. 

Breakfast would be a bland malt cereal, with some fresh milk and a coffee, no sugar and strictly no tea. Nothing for five hours and that would be a light sandwich, no sweets and no cookies. It was varied sometimes, but the food was often basic, dried, sometimes a bit of fruit, but always timed. I would have periods of fasting for half a day each week, and then took up some keep fit, jogging and games, I attended a badminton group each late morning. 

My clothes fell off me, and I bought very small size 0 clothes. I never fitted in such sizes since I was at school! People were amazed and asked how I got so skinny. I became very ill and ended up in hospital where I lost touch with him. I lost the determination to keep at the diet regime and slowly put weight back on eating at the hospital times. I was so very thin that my immune system suffered during this. The Ghost Diet made me vulnerable to horrible illnesses I had one after another, bronchitis, recurring spells of whooping cough and pneumonia. This lasted months. I never went back to the "ghost diet" anymore. 

Storm Valkyrie