{"id":495,"date":"2011-06-22T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=495"},"modified":"2011-06-20T07:54:28","modified_gmt":"2011-06-20T11:54:28","slug":"the-longest-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Two Summer Solstice Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Here are two poems in honor of the Summer Solstice by our lovely readers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Longest Day<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By <a href=\"http:\/\/emergingvisions.blogspot.com\" target=\"_blank\">Laurie Corzett<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Earth of sea and land and air<\/p>\n<p>Lit into opportunistic life<\/p>\n<p>by her mother star<\/p>\n<p>Energy for you and me to<\/p>\n<p>burst into bloom<\/p>\n<p>flit fly in<\/p>\n<p>busy devious thievery<\/p>\n<p>cacophonous rambling<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Surging through veils,<\/p>\n<p>storms breathing ice, sand,<\/p>\n<p>the fire of prophecy<\/p>\n<p>the flood of melting,<\/p>\n<p>glacial migration<\/p>\n<p>bequeaths rage, rampage,<\/p>\n<p>rapacious gratuities<\/p>\n<p>boiling beneath.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not winter here, nuclear quiet,<\/p>\n<p>all&#8217;s right for the longest of nights.<\/p>\n<p>Not yet.<\/p>\n<p>The eternal balance<\/p>\n<p>rocks, stars, dark<\/p>\n<p>inconsistencies with<\/p>\n<p>metaphors of the righteous<\/p>\n<p>long ceased bowing to scriptures.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow, the Sun will rise.<\/p>\n<p>The Earth will revolve.<\/p>\n<p>Life will adjust, compromise.<\/p>\n<p>After the workday, we celebrate<\/p>\n<p>potent evening light.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>In observation of Summer Solstice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/christina.countryman\" target=\"_blank\">Christina Countryman<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In recognition of the blessing of being alive on this beautiful planet<\/p>\n<p>With great gratitude I honor the four directions<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To the east and all that lay in that direction&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>May the air and oceans enfold you in glorious beauty<\/p>\n<p>And all creatures thrive upon your shores in health and harmony<\/p>\n<p>Blessed be<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To the south and all that lay in that direction&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>May your mountains and rivers wash clean water to the sea<\/p>\n<p>And your lakes and forests shelter all who dwell there<\/p>\n<p>Blessed be<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To the west and all that lay in that direction&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>May the big sky of your plains sparkle with crystal clarity<\/p>\n<p>And gift all life with healing rains and glorious sunshine<\/p>\n<p>Blessed be<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To the north and all that lay in that direction&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>May your midnight sun shine upon a planet filled with hope<\/p>\n<p>And the possibility of a peaceful world be made real<\/p>\n<p>Blessed be<\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n<p>Donna Henes is the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em><\/a>. She is the Midlife Midwife\u2122 offering counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity.<\/p>\n<p>Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donnahenes.net\/queen\/consult.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.donnahenes.net\/queen\/consult.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to <a href=\"thequeenofmyself@aol.com\">thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Here are two poems in honor of the Summer Solstice by our lovely readers. &nbsp; The Longest Day By Laurie Corzett Earth of sea and land and air Lit into opportunistic life by her mother star Energy for you and me to burst into bloom flit fly in busy devious thievery cacophonous rambling &nbsp;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[225,226,31,229,167,13,227,228,224,215,230],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-spirituality","tag-balance","tag-directions","tag-earth","tag-eas","tag-energy","tag-holistic-living","tag-north","tag-south","tag-sumer-solstice","tag-sun","tag-t-west"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Two Summer Solstice Poems - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Summer Solstice Poems - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; Here are two poems in honor of the Summer Solstice by our lovely readers. &nbsp; The Longest Day By Laurie Corzett Earth of sea and land and air Lit into opportunistic life by her mother star Energy for you and me to burst into bloom flit fly in busy devious thievery cacophonous rambling &nbsp;&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-22T14:00:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-20T11:54:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Two Summer Solstice Poems - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Two Summer Solstice Poems - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"&nbsp; Here are two poems in honor of the Summer Solstice by our lovely readers. &nbsp; The Longest Day By Laurie Corzett Earth of sea and land and air Lit into opportunistic life by her mother star Energy for you and me to burst into bloom flit fly in busy devious thievery cacophonous rambling &nbsp;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html","og_site_name":"The Queen of My Self","article_published_time":"2011-06-22T14:00:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-06-20T11:54:28+00:00","author":"Donna Henes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html","name":"Two Summer Solstice Poems - The Queen of My Self","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-06-22T14:00:41+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-20T11:54:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2011\/06\/the-longest-day.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Two Summer Solstice Poems"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/","name":"The Queen of My Self","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Henes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a","name":"Donna Henes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","caption":"Donna Henes"},"description":"Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}