Energies Of Summer Solstice In Mysticism

My talk for this morning is energies of summer solstice and mysticism.

You know, we're right in the summer solstice season, as you know.

Summer solstice actually is the term given to that cycle which we call the beginning of summer or the longest day of the year. Now most of us have not come to any real understanding of the significance of these different points that we relate to the year.

For example, when we speak of the equinox or when we speak of the solstice, we have two equinox periods as we know the vernal equinox sometimes called spring equinox and there's the autumnal equinox then we have the summer solstice and we have the winter solstice the summer solstice is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year the winter solstice is the first day of winter and the shortest shortest day of the year. And I'd like to remind you that our beloved Frater Will and Sora Joise have just come from exactly the opposite. They have come from New Zealand, which is approximately as far from the equator southward as we are here northward. Nor is this an accident. It has to do with the interweaving of consciousness, the balancing of the magnetic currents which after all are an end result of a vaster consciousness at least a result in a specialized way that we experience it though it involves much more so right we have right now the beginning of summer and our will and Joyce II just came from the shortest day of the year winter dear indeed. I think it is fascinating to come during the period of the extreme. But the point is they came here not accidentally at this time, because you see the summer solstice has meaning upon meaning, and the meaning has its significance in terms of our readiness to understand, or or perhaps we could put it another way, our ability to be able to see in certain ways or on certain levels.

It's similar to what has been reported when people who've been blind have never seen at all, have had some kind of miracle, either via the avenue of what appears to be non-material sources or via the avenue of what appears to be a material source like a doctor it's usually equally a miracle because there's only one healer and whether this one healer with a capital h uses a doctor or uses no intermediary or a apparent intermediary, it is still the one thing. But in the same manner, when someone suddenly is given the ability to see, they don't know how.

They experience extraordinary problems until they train themselves.

They have to train their brain to interpret all kinds of impacts that are meaningless at first. Things look utterly different to them than they do to us because you see we don't really see with our eyes we see with our consciousness but we have forgotten this training aspect that we went through that everyone goes through learning how to interpret the vibrations that we are receiving and the vibrations we receive and seeing have to do with light and the way consciousness interprets this light you and I could be looking at what appears to be the same object for example and I might say how beautiful and you might say how ugly now would a third person know that we are talking about the same object consciousness is interpreting the impact of vibrations and actually giving its own emotional response as a matter of fact to these vibrations so when we try to give you some insight into the significance of the summer solstice what I would like to point out is that that inasmuch as we have that which is the longest day of the year, that means that our physical sun in the heavens is observable for a longer period than at any other time in the year.

Therefore, we are receiving warmth, radiations, and radiations not just in one band of vibration, but on many bands, the unseen as well as the seen. Because remember you don't have to see x-rays but they sure can affect you nor do you see ultraviolet but my god it can kill you you stay out in the sun too long and you find out god forbid that you should take my word for it you haven't already been taught by life in some way or when you stayed out in the sun too long once upon a time so the point is you don't have to see a thing for it to be powerful and yet the very light that we see is like a message that there are other vibrations that are functioning then and there so summer solstice brings influences of the most intense kind for the year but intense in what way well let's recapitulate just very briefly because I do want to concentrate on the summer itself but we can't understand one thing without going to the other as a matter of fact eating of the fruit gave us the ability to have consciousness because we gained the ability to experience these pairs of opposites so you cannot know the significance of summer solstice without us bringing up winter solstice you You cannot understand the significance of the extra light unless we have a word or two to say about the extra absence of light.

And we can't understand these things unless we know also how does the movement go.

And the very movement has to do with the continuous movement of life itself. Well, during the two equinox periods, you know, we have, these are the only two times in the year, we have an exactly balanced aspect dealing with light.

Over the entire planet, you have an exact number of hours that are light and dark. They're balanced right down the middle, and it's true for the entire planet.

And the only difference is that that balance, that exact number of light and dark and in our experience of our days and nights, the only difference is that in the vernal equinox, we are just coming from a winter solstice, whereas in the autumnal equinox, we are coming from a summer solstice. So we're working with the other side of a coin in what is about to happen. And for this very reason, we need to understand that you cannot separate the coins. The minute you talk about summer, you have to remember there's winter.

The minute you think of a vernal equinox, you have to remember there's going to be an autumnal equinox. And when you don't, incidentally, the things that you plan are simply not going to work out very well. In other words, having foresight has to do with really understanding the significance of what is in terms of what might then be expected and working with the will of God has to do with understanding the energies of this mysterious kind of livingness and movement that we see as the Sun and its planets and the stars and the moon and all of the mysteries and miracles that we that surround us all the time and we lose track of these mysteries and miracles mainly because we think that they're just something to be taken for granted and of course this is where we really lose the ability to utilize these seasons as good trained Qabalists during the equinox periods when we have the exact numbers of light and dark equalizing themselves. These two periods are the periods when it is easiest. You've heard me tell you this before. It is easiest. That doesn't mean it's easy, by the way. I'm just saying it's easiest relative to how easy or hard it is for you.

It's easiest to give up past patterns and take on new ones, or it's easier to be willing to give up past patterns and take over new ones or it's easier to decent to make decisions on working at a willingness to accept change by giving up that which is outworn its usefulness for us has served us well but it's not useful anymore and being willing to take the next step forward if you will think of the spiral that circles on always coming a little higher you might be able to think then of the two equinox periods as being those times when we are able to give up that which we thought was the most meaningful thing to us at a previous period but which has already out you outlived its usefulness for us. You know, when I was a child, I thought as a child, there were things we need, and we need them very badly at one stage and at one age, which we do not need anymore at a later stage and a later age. We need to be very, very involved in some aspects of life at one age, which, if we held on to this involvement, would become complete immaturity and an arrestment of development at a later stage and with this understanding then we come to realize that the way to stay alive in its most intense manner is to accept the principle of change and therefore by accepting learn to use change for our our purposes and work furthermore at getting our purposes to harmonize with the divine purpose which is another way of saying the divine will now that if you want to wear winter clothes at the height of summer you can but I don't think you're going to be comfortable and when we get ourselves into trouble it's because we're attempting to do something that foolish only we don't know it so we can scream and we can beat ourselves on the chest or beat other people on the chest whatever our temperament is sometimes both but it really doesn't solve the problem at all now then remembering that the equinox because of that pause that little there's that instant of quiet that balance that the the seesaw that is going up and down.

It is almost stationary, not really, just almost.

It is because of that point, and incidentally the forces last for something like ten days, take about, or even as much as two weeks, about a week coming and a week going, though the height is on the actual day. But the energies are working themselves up always so that it is not just a one instant in time that this takes place. Nothing is that sudden. You know, whatever it is that we look at, there are graduations that are taking place. Whatever it is that we experience, it's like a graduation of awarenesses. So that we must never think there's just one split second where something can be or happen. After a while, we learn to utilize the idea that we call the eternal now. But those people who really can experience the eternal now are the ones who have learned to recognize and treasure the seasons.

Now, this may not sound very logical.

I can make it sound logical, if you'd like. You know, women have a gift that way.

All of us do, but I think women are just a little better sometimes at that, making anything sound logical that they want to sound logical.

And that's part of the mystery that, of course, men are always trying to solve, which is beautiful. I want men to always try to solve it. It'll keep them excited and interested, and it keeps life very charming, basically, once we accept certain principles. The Divine Mother is not the Divine Father although they are in union you see and in the same manner we do have certain tendencies though we all have traits that are alike but not to the same degree alright then, so I don't know whether you want me to make this logical for you because I definitely can but I thought perhaps there are other elements we might want to stress but if you will try to see for a moment what is involved here with this ability to accept movement to accept change dealing then with the equinox the ability to be willing to give up what was in order to take on what we want for the next stage.

We will see then that in our summer solstice and in our winter solstice, we have developments that take place coming there from.

Because let's take spring.

Now, spring or the vernal equinox is that period when we've just come through through great darkness. Now this, remember, everything that occurs on the physical plane is an outer expression of a principle of consciousness that is working. In fact, the physical plane is consciousness that is holding itself in certain electromagnetic force fields, if you will. And these force fields are experienced by us in certain ways, or things that, for for instance, are physical, and they're very real because you try walking through the force field of a wall. You're not going to make the grade.

You see, they're real, even though their reality consists of consciousness whirling in a very precise way, in a precise pattern.

This vernal equinox, then, comes at a time when we have gone through darkness. In other words, have you not noticed, for example, that the spring of your heart, the vernal equinox of your heart, has come always after you've gone through some problem? Sometimes it's been a very drastic problem. Sometimes it may not have seemed so drastic. But haven't you noticed that there has come a peace a calm that pause and also a willingness after you've had enough tears or sorrow or suffering or frustration or whatever it is the darkness is indicating haven't you noted that come the vernal equinox of your heart of your mind that you find yourself planting new seeds you find a sort of new life beginning for you in some ways it's like being reborn which it is incidentally because it is during the winter solstice that you are reborn the Sun has died the Sun has died and And then, miracle of miracles, the shortest day of the year, darkness has overwhelmed the heart. No light anywhere. No perception, no ability to understand. This is all consciousness, dealing with the season.

But then that realization that I am alive and willing to be alive after all that there are certain new things that can be done or new people that can be met or new occupations that can be prepared for or new friends that can be made somehow this is the this is the vernal equinox this is the time when after everything was seemed certainly dead there was no leaf on a tree coldness everything was frozen just like the heart has been frozen cycle after cycle when we haven't been in grief in darkness and ignorance we've not been even we've not even been able to feel our love haven't you been through that you know you love yet cannot feel it well if you haven't been through it in this incarnation I tell you you've been through it in the past I hope you don't need any more in this although somehow we always have a little of it as long as we have the privilege of being alive and experiencing this mystery and miracle that we call the universe with its sun and moon and stars and seasons we have to have the shadow with the light if we didn't we wouldn't have consciousness at all and this is our great problem that we have not yet learned to realize that for the ability to experience rapture we have to be willing to walk through the pain indeed for the experience to have greater rapture we have to have been able to develop developed the capacity for this rapture how could you know joy except you've known its opposite how could you know fulfillment except you've known the emptiness and almost nothingness true emptiness being fulfilled is being filled up right and unless you've been empty you haven't even known what being fulfilled would be so in order to know that it exists in order to learn how to reach for it in order to learn how to plant the seeds in your vernal equinox for these fulfillments to come you have to have been through the darkness and that is why the first thing we must do to understand the energies of the summer solstice is to understand that there never was an experience no matter how many tears it brought you that was not benevolent and good in the final analysis whatever it may have seemed like at the time there never was a winter that did not have spring following it.

There were dead branches, and we may have thought, oh, I have lost everything I care about. Well, remember the crucifixion is a story of initiation.

And it is taught in Qabalah that the begotten is the offspring of God crucified. And who is it? What is it? It's you. It's me. It is Adam, it is humanity.

In Qabalah, it is called Ben, and that means sun, also offspring. And that's assigned on the tree of life to beauty. And that's the sphere of the activity of the sun, S-U-N.

So the summer solstice basically also brings us to that point where more light that is more illumination more perception more understanding can come to us because we are being more bathed for a longer period of time and with more intensity by the light of the divine offspring of which we are all raised now isn't that something glorious to recognize to realize well at first it might be just intellectual but you see the point is you are being trained first to receive the knowledge which is intellectual but from that comes enough understanding when you go through your seasons and work properly with your seasons in other words when you learn to prepare for winter by making sure you've got a good warm coat and good warm socks and if you go out in the summer you take along something warm in case it's too cold in a restaurant we have our little equinoxes too like going where we freeze or where the blinds are drawn so that we have many kinds of darkness they're all part of the one darkness and we have many kinds of light and they're all part of the one light but the when we develop an ability to accept what is as a moving point of experience necessary to the evolution of life only then will be we become the masters of consciousness that we're preparing to be and And remember, to become masters of consciousness means, basically, that we learn how to utilize the seasons, including the very energies from the stars.

Because what are stars but points of light as we experience them but really consciousnesses or when the sons of God sang and serenaded the daughters of men what are stars sons of God our Our son is a son of God. We are the same. Aspects growing, being developed, being evolved.

Now then, the vernal equinox brings us that period where we can most readily start to prepare for what we want. Do you remember when you start your lessons in BOTA? The very first lesson you get, it asks you, what do you want and by golly don't go further until you decide you know what you want you sit down you know most people get thrown in a tremendous uproar they they get filled with all kinds of emotional problems they say what do you mean what do I want you know I want something like liberation I want to attain illumination I want to serve I want spiritual awareness you know what is this are these people materialistic or something trying to make us say what do I want in terms you know something that's a here and now that you can touch taste feel or whatever lots of people get pretty disturbed the reason they do is because they're not willing to accept reality you know this in other words they aren't willing to see that you have to give up what was and you can only do that when you're willing to see what is in order to plan properly for what should be what you'd like things to be now if you like things to be in ways or plan ahead in ways that are not in harmony with the larger consciousness then you're going to have your little seasons within the larger one in other words you're going to have your little winter solstice and you're a little autumnal equinox that's when you reap what you're sown you know karma karma and you have to be afraid of it suppose you planted some beautiful seeds for harvesting that will give you rich grains of various kinds and vegetables and all kinds of fruits that will be ripe on the vine.

And even that vine that gives us that fruit, which when we do certain things to it, sort of spiritualizes via its spirits.

You know, there's more than one way to think. The point is our little seasons, we make them within our framework or field of being, just like the larger consciousness, which you might call the solar locus, makes its seasons in which we all share. We have level upon level of consciousness. And what's true for the larger is true for the smaller. And the smaller part isn't our only truth though you see because we share in both the smaller and the larger truths so being able to see what is really there brings us to the crux of the matter then now the time that it's easiest to look upon the face of reality is the summer solstice obviously it It should be, because we have more light. That's the idea of illumination, right? And we have more hours of light, longest day of the year. Now, this isn't just a physical thing. I always remind you and remind you.

I hope you don't think ad nauseum, because if so, so must it be. Because I'm going to keep reminding you that we don't really remember, and we need these reminders continuously. And so I must keep reminding you of the fact that the ability to see, the ability to accept and face reality, the ability and capacity to receive illumination is always there and being presented as a gift to us provided we teach ourselves how to see.

And obviously, as I pointed out, our ability to understand anything that we are yearning to understand whether it be the way our own heart yearns or what it really is yearning for whether it be understanding or insight into another might be our mate or a friend whatever it is if we're willing to see the reality, that's when we are receiving the greatest amount of this solar energy for ourselves from the Solar Logos.

This willingness to accept reality isn't really such a noble thing, you know. I mean, I've known of people who, having gone through a lot of hell, finally with tears rolling down their cheeks, I was once one of those. I hope I won't be again.

I whispered that so only you will hear it the point is that this yearning to have things as we want them to be keeps us from seeing things as they are and when we're not willing to see reality or see things as they are or see people as they are or conditions as they are we're certainly not going to be reaping the kind of harvest we want. We're not going to be in the rejoicing part of the autumnal equinox because we will have planted seeds in our vernal equinox that aren't very fertile, or if they're fertile, they're more apt to bring us weeds rather than that which we've been imaging as wanting for nourishment. And so we when we come to the period of the autumnal equinox where we start harvesting what we've sown and prepare for the winter because remember from the equinox to the winter solstice the days get shorter and shorter yet as a matter of fact they start getting shorter from the very instant that we hit the summer solstice.

Right now, we are in the midst of this intensity of life. Do you know we're already dying?

We're already dying again.

Please remember, again.

At the very height of life, that's when the dying starts again. And then at the height of death that's when the living starts again this is what you want to remember so that it when you are in the depths of a despair it may sound trait about if if winter comes can spring be far behind but it isn't there is a profound truth behind this statement beyond anything that words can tell when your heart knows it then you will know it some of you know it partially but that's not enough you have to know it more and the point is the moving of the seasons is really the motion of life going from its plantings to its height of illumination where all the intensity and rapture of livingness can take place for us if we permit it to take place for us. Then comes this realization that there's the dying and we've got to prepare to harvest the proper foods so that after the rest, when in some areas snow covers the ground or in other areas we have other elements involved, the point is there is always that shorter day and it has been discovered all of plant life grows in accordance with how many hours of light and dark are involved it used to be thought that it had to do with warm and cold but it doesn't it's the hours of light and dark that has to do with the growing of plants and their seasons of reproduction.

And it also has to do with our ability to evolve in harmony with the entire movement of the consciousness of the higher beings, the hierarchy who have placed some of the most beautiful, you might say, angelic hosts around to care for us to look after us in every way provided we let them provided we let them and there perhaps is the crux of the matter you know when we seek to go beyond the ability to suffer pain we are also stopping ourselves from the capacity for fulfillment rapture joy and all things now this is the greatest problem I have as your spiritual teacher at this time trying to get this very important message across to you as spiritual aspirants and to me that is about the most important message that any human consciousness can receive it is the realization that we have to stop trying to run away from the necessary periods or seasons of winter.

We have to be willing to prepare for them, not in any sordid manner, but because we keep looking forward to our next illumination and our next harvesting and our growth in our greater and enlarged capacities. One of the problems is that too many people who had nothing better to do or were in love with themselves so in love with themselves I don't think they had time to really love anybody else they didn't have enough love left over you know it was all turned inward they were they wrote books you see and in these books they said this is the way it is and aspirants all over read all of these books and I believe in reading I read what every school of occult thought had to say when I went on my research path so to speak to discover what is acceptable to my intellect to my intuition to my perception what is acceptable what does my reason say about these things and I did discover that you you buy book after book from various schools of thought and they all keep encouraging you to become an escapist and I thought the blind leading the blind the blind leading the blind how if you had worked at escaping the seasons how would you know all the variations that there are in life had you succeeded in not having the winters of your life how would you appreciate anything else as a matter of fact we have to arrive at the time where we appreciate our winters where we appreciate the darkness because of the promise it holds you might say well what's the use of coming to mysticism of coming to the training of the secret wisdom of israel what is the use why should I come here to be told that I mustn't run run away from being vulnerable.

I guess that's the best way to put it. Why come here? I'll go where I'll be made to feel real good, where I'm going to be told, now, you don't have to have any more winters.

You don't have to have any more sadness. You don't have to have any more loss of people or friends. You don't have to suffer anything at all anymore. Just follow me and do what I tell you to. Now that's the thing that you hear as I told you, the thing that I find more difficult than anything else in the world perhaps is trying to help you to see that these are false prophets who teach you this, or attempt to teach you this self-deceived, most of them just trying to be very important an extraordinary percentage of them because the truth of the matter is that if you are going to accept the significance of the story of that great initiate the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth if you're going to accept the significance of that other great initiate again a qabalistic story of Job you're going to have to see that the capacity to know pain is a privilege I'm not talking about going out and being a masochist but the capacity to know pain is a privilege because it is consciousness that is being grown to know the rapture and ecstasy of love of God of Union and the time does come when the core of the soul can be at peace in other words when winter comes instead of getting all up bumbled you know humanity when it was still very primitive came winter they had reason to get pretty upset because they didn't survive as readily through the winter did they a lot of deaths and pneumonia so on that's why so they were forced to learn how to make clothes and how to do all kinds of things to survive through the winter and that outer physical thing has its inner spiritual significance this is how the mind kept evolving into larger measures this is how the heart kept evolving into deeper capacities and once we know and understand these principles we then are able to walk with peace through our various winters and as a matter of fact we we get a cycle going where they our winters are shorter for us because we are walking with this core of insight of perception and therefore it is different it isn't that you can that it wipes out all pain look master rikatsu himself personally told me and dr. Case and our beloved Harriet case when we were receiving a certain special communications for the book of tokens he said that the problem with most aspirants is that they seem to think that the masters of wisdom are something other than human beings he said the truth is they are only older brothers not any different from you not not any different from me, just sheerly or merely older brothers.

He said, what does it mean to be an older brother?

He said, being an older brother means he doesn't go into a tantrum that the children go into over the same things.

I hope you heard the last few words.

He's got to have better reasons. At least that's what I say. He didn't say that, I say that.

And he didn't exactly say the tantrum. What he had to say sounded much more sedate. But my soul doesn't like being sedate too long at one time. I figure so much sedateness, and then people might fall asleep. So it's better to become a little unsedate rather than be a sedative to you. Give you more life this way. And that's what summer solstice is. Have you noticed how living everything is? Or have you been too busy complaining about the temperature?

Because sometimes we can complain about too much light. Sometimes we don't like what we see in a mate or a friend or a child or a parent. So we complain. But the point is, if we're not willing to see what is, we truly then are stopping ourselves cold from having true illumination. If you're not willing for reality to be reality how can you experience whatever is meant by illumination I ask you when I received my one of my very first of I would say the most profound teachings that one can receive from a very profound adept at that point I was still absolutely absolutely determined you see when you're younger you're very hysterical about your aspiration and so I was in and anything I do I always do very well you notice I'm lacking in humility you see I'm bragging that shows you how far I have to go because the only way you know a true spiritual teacher is by their humility so you see be on guard right now anyway anyway I remember I was in my I was really intensely hysterical about my aspiration life is pain life is pain and I wanted to get the hell out of it exclamation mark several of them not period but exclamation mark and if this is the only way I could get out well all right if I had had to meditate, I'd meditate. I didn't care what I had to do, but I had to get out of it.

That was the point. So there I was with that attitude, and this adept said, well, he said, tell me, what is it that you're out for? What is it that you want? I said, I want to get out of the pain of being imprisoned by a life that's pain.

Now I've discovered I can't get out of it by taking an overdose of sleeping pills it's a trick that's been played on me I discover you can't die you have a lot of little deaths but consciousness can't die and as far as I'm concerned, boy I tell you that's a dirty trick you know you're stuck with consciousness to me that's really being imprisoned I said to him Because up until then, I had about three years of atheism that I thought was marvelous, or I thought of myself as an atheist, where I just felt so secure, thinking, like I was saying, to you, God, if I don't like it, sleeping pills and out.

I don't have to take anything.

I can get out of life. So I felt like I could wrestle with God. You know, a Qabalist always does, whether they know they're Qabalists or not. I didn't know what a Qabalist I was then yet, but I was wrestling away with God, you know, defying God. Boy, I tell you, I can just get out of life like that. All I have to do is take a good overdose of the sleeping pills and then nicely, serenely, I waft away. No more consciousness. Ha ha, boy, I've gotten out. That gave me courage.

And then, trick of tricks, I discover uh-uh I'd been fooling myself there is no out you might lose your body this particular body but you sure can't lose the consciousness and that was I was terrible agonizing so what am I going to do I'm stuck what do you do what to do what to do well I'll have to do whatever is possible to get out of the pain of consciousness at any rate Oh nirvana I'd read about nirvana Nirvana sounded about as close to extinction as I could imagine and that was what I was after that was for me, I wanted Nirvana so I was really working for my illuminations, I could have extinction now isn't that ridiculous but people so seriously read books they don't realize what they're taking into their consciousness but he said, is that all you want? He said, don't you want reality? I said, certainly I want reality. That's what I'm after, is reality.

He said, you are.

He said, suppose if you were going to receive the complete illumination, means the complete reality, suppose you would discover there is no God after all. What then? I stopped and thought for a moment. I said, why? Then I would know.

Then I would know. He said, well, would you want to know? I said well certainly he said all right you're ready at that point I was given more complete instruction because why I was willing to accept reality even if it should turn out there was really no god which was nonsense of course but I mean now that's you see a testing now this is the uh those who've gone beyond some of us have to put consciousness through certain tests and that was quite a test and he watched my expression if I was self-deluded he'd certainly have known it but my desire for reality was what took me on the next spiral so that I was able to start preparing for that summer solstice of the next illumination and what I discovered my loves is the thing I so yearn to share with you I didn't discover it once or with one flash of illumination I've had many flashes and many illuminations and I have had and have perceptions and realizations and what are they basically one can't put them into words and I am a fool and try even though I know I can't but I do try to share with you at least inklings what I have discovered and what it is that I truly know is this that the privilege of having consciousness is so fantastic that we should not be seeking ways to escape pain as we do we should be seeking to have more consciousness so that we can do more beautiful things with it the privilege of consciousness brings with it the privilege of the pair of opposites and therefore to have a capacity to love with all of yourselves you have to have gone through that emptiness of not being able to love or feel perhaps I have not been loved to be searching for love from somebody else is to to be lost in the delusions and missing out on the movement of consciousness the true insight and perception this summer solstice can give you now because right now remember we are better able to see reality than usual that doesn't mean that we can see it perfectly you understand just better able each summer solstice it's a little better than the past provided we work with it and what What I'm trying to help you to see is this, to help give you a little extra light within the summer solstice of your consciousness.

To help you to see that when we watch all the little livingness that's going on, Jacob and I are standing by a little pond and our own goldfish, and we had a great sorrow a couple months or so ago because three of our gorgeous goldfish, we have this fish pond out of doors were caught by some creature and obviously eaten and you know you get to know and love your creatures and there was this sorrow and my Jacob he started to burst out with his gorgeous masculine principal capacities you know wanted to go out and do battle you know with whatever with whatever the creature was you know that had taken his you know this was the burst outburst of his pain and I felt this poignant anguish inside of me and I said never mind dear now you leave it alone because I knew it has to be we have a lot of skunks live around our place I don't mean people skunks though maybe those too I don't know I hope we have and the way we listen we were initiated well and regularly our little six and a quarter pound Yorkshire Terrier tangled with one a few months ago at 430 in the morning and my Jacob Ola here he didn't know what to do I fortunately remembered subconsciously that if you bathe them in vinegar real it takes it away it did but he did it in such a way that I had to jump up fast to make sure the baby's eyes would be all right and so on it took away the the smell the point is we know we have skunks and I'm told skunks do sometimes catch fish and eat them because it happened during the night and the greens were pushed away and I anyway I said to my jacob never mind sweetheart the little creature has been pushed away from its habitat, as have so many little creatures by man, it would just as soon not have to live in this garden and our neighbor's garden. It would rather be in its own habitat and it's wild. And here it is fighting to survive like every living thing. And this did not take away my pain.

But my pain was a different kind of pain. I was still very much full of love for the little skunk though I said for God's sakes keep away naturally and go eat something else but I mean but the point is when you face reality and have perception you know that possibly there are certain things going to happen now Jacob said no more no more goldfish absolutely you know we can't and get rid of the skunk. There's no way to get rid of the skunk. No more goldfish. I said, no, dear. We'll have to keep trying. And creatures have to live and they work at surviving. In other words, to have the joy of whatever we can have there to survive, you have to be willing to take the pain.

Now, we are standing there now and do you know we've suddenly discovered that two of those goldfish that went they had been pregnant I could tell they were pregnant and by God thank you God they managed to lay eggs we've discovered a whole bunch of little tiny baby goldfish they are so tiny they are not as long as a thumbtack I'm talking about the long part of the thumbtack you know they are so tiny but they are already turning white and from that some of them a little gold and they're hard to see when they're that tiny especially we have a lot of mosquito fish too that they're that dark color bit goldfish are dark when they're first born you know so suddenly we have this rapture of new birth and so which is a rapture indeed the point is if there was not going to be no more goldfish we couldn't have this rapture if we're not willing to risk ourselves we're not going to have the rapture of any kind of love to be able to love means to be willing to be vulnerable some people lose a dog or a cat or a beloved pet they say no more no more well what they are saying is no more life they're saying no to life they're saying no to growth and this is the message I'm trying so hard always to make your heart see that we can walk through our winters with a serenity.

If we are willing for reality to be reality, to know that our rapture and capacity to love is dependent on our being willing to walk through our winters and our seasons, and furthermore, we experience them in a different way.

We don't experience them negatively when we're willing to take our equinoxes, let the old go, take the new, because in the final analysis you see life cannot really die nor can you never the spirit was born and the spirit will cease to be never never was time you were not life and deaths are really one bodies come and bodies go but the consciousness gains and harvests to have consciousness is a privilege to love life I am trying to help you to fall more and more completely and staggeringly helplessly and hopelessly in love with life that means your life your consciousness my life my consciousness our life and every living thing that walks upon the earth and beneath the earth this is rapture and the real rapture that we don't fear the pain happy summer solstice to you my love rapture Thank you.