Midsummer 2024

 This is a different post about Midsummer, or the Summer Solstice. I was planning to send only a Happy Midsummer entry with a nice picture and even info on plants and sun cakes, but I've changed my mind. I'm burning with anger. Stonehenge has been in the centre of things, and it's been reported that someone vandalised these ancient megaliths. I don't care about what they say and what their reasons are for doing this. It's a desecration of a sacred site. Stonehenge is part of heritage and was constructed before the Great Pyramids of Egypt. It was targeted by fools. 

It's also with sadness that society has become so decayed that this sort of stuff is going on, and it's simply allowed, and they're making a lot of damage and harm. It's not the first time Neolithic sacred landmarks have been under attack. I don't know what the local druids make of this. 

In the world, sickness and evil. Attacks on heritage sites such as the Chemin de Montauban and Hill of Tara, Stone of Destiny, and many more is like a destabilising the columns and pillars of civilisation. 

It's similar to the legend of the Dharma bull in Vedic texts, who had four legs representing a golden age, but lost a leg in a period of discord. Later another time of destruction made the bull lose another leg. And then another. Less legs was more chaos and immorality in the world. When the bull was left with only one leg, that period of time became known as yuga (Kali), and also the iron age. The vandalism is one thing, but it represent all that is happening and going wrong. 

But the concept of time is a circle. And with that, I will say let the Golden Age return. Enjoy Midsummer and the Summer Solstice. Keep positive and have love.

A page on the Kaliyuga at Medium: https://medium.com/@exoticindiaa/kaliyuga-the-age-of-darkness-and-its-significance-30aa4d68c0c2

Storm Valkyrie  

Stellar twins

 There are many parallels with life, from a spiritual view to a realistic. I don't actually mean twin siblings but a spirit double. Even twins have their own spirit doubles. These doubles can be our astral selves, our inner selves and our shadow selves. The moon that we're familiar with has a secondary unknown aspect, which is the dark side of the moon. The sun even has a soul twin, which is significant as well as powerful and can be regarded as the "unseen" in many circles. Each of us have a double self, the esoteric and the external. The inner and outer, shadow and light, physical and astral. The concept appears a lot in philosophy and psychology.  

Regards to the sun itself, in mythology, it appears just as strong and blinding in reflections. It's believed that our own star had a physical twin named Nemesis. In Greek mythology, Nemesis is the goddess of revenge. Many have considered calling this Nemesis "evil" because it was believed to throw stones at the Earth every 26 million years, and might've caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. While many don't accept this idea, some scientists believe each star is born with a twin. Observations were made looking at the Perseus Cloud, described as a "stellar nursery" by New Atlas, discussing how research was made. It seemed that watching the young stars showed they were binary systems, and this may be how stars are born. Nemesis was never there, according to many who don't accept the idea, while believers think Nemesis has just wandered off in the Milky Way.

In mythology, Apollo the god of the sun had a twin sister, Artemis, goddess of the moon. Apollo and Artemis are Olympians, although there are the older gods, including the personification of the sun and moon, who are Helios and his sister Selene. It's just as well that we're under the House of Gemini at present, that stands for the Twins. That would be, your inner and outer selves.

More reading:

New Atlas articleNew Atlas article on "evil twin" Nemesis. 

Books by Claude Lecouteux: "Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages." 

Storm Valkyrie    

Rose, June flower

 

While June is the time when flowers appear in their brilliance and colours, it's a month associated with the rose. People born in June have two birth flowers, the rose mainly and then the honeysuckle. While the honeysuckle is also a pretty sweet scented edible flower that brings in butterflies and bees, climbs walls and decorates gardens, it protects against evil spirits according to folklore. Honeysuckle is the secondary June flower, and rose is the first.

There's many types of roses, and the first recorded rose to appear was during the Late Eocene period. Most modern roses are hybrids for gardens, produced for perfumes and hedges. Early cultivation goes back to 500 BCE around the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East and in China. These roses haven't just been ornaments but also as a food and medicine plant. Roses contain vitamin C. 

Symbolising love, roses are also sacred to Goddess Aphrodite. Also the origin of roses in Greek mythology comes from Chloris the goddess of flowers. She transformed a dead nymph into a rose, making the most beautiful and sweet smelling flower. 

Storm Valkyrie