On June 20th, the Sun enters the 30-degree portion of the Zodiac we know as Cancer. Cancer is the first astrological sign of Summer, its beginning indicated by the Summer Solstice. The constellation of Cancer is one of the least visible in our time but was one of the first constellations named. The Sun in Cancer indicates a caring and nurturing time of year, a time of involvement with home and family including patriotism, our world and home. We want to focus on home as an inclusive, rather than devisive energy; not my home vs. your home but Earth as all our home. It is no coincidence that family vacations, reunions, and weddings fill our calendars this time of year.

Cancer is complex and variable in temperament coinciding with the variability in appearance of its ruler, the Moon. This yin, cardinal, water sign is nurturing, protective, tenacious, and emotionally sensitive, with strong roots. It can also be smothering, unwilling to let go, timid and reclusive. The energy of Cancer is often invoked in Real Estate dealings and I think it is important to clarify that Cancer relates to safety, security and long-term investment. It does not relate to risk taking or “Making a killing” in the market.

The monthly installment of The Great Astrological Light Bulb Joke:

Q. How many Cancerians does it take to change a light bulb?

A. Just one. But it takes a therapist three years to help them through the grieving process.  

Note: I have no idea who originally wrote this. Erika sent it to me years ago and I still think it’s as funny as it is insightful!

June 21st is the Summer Solstice. The word Solstice is Latin in origin and means, "The Sun stood still.” On June 21, the North Pole is tilted most directly Sunward. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere experience this as the longest day and shortest night of the year. On December 21, the Winter Solstice, the North Pole is pointed away from the Sun giving us in the Northern Hemisphere, our shortest day, and longest night. This tilting of the Earth's rotational axis gives us our seasons. During each Solstice, the Sun appears to both rise and set at the exact same spot on the horizon. This helps to explain how the Solar Calendars like Stonehenge and the Sun Dagger in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico operate.

Litha is a Fire Festival, usually celebrated with a bonfire or community Bar-be-que. Traditionally, there would be mummer's plays and dancing culminating with dancers actually leaping through the flames as the fire burned lower. Amulets or magickal tools that have served their purpose or have broken are added to the fire at this festival. The solstices were know in Babylonian astrology as "the portals" identifying Cancer and Capricorn as the time when the "veil between the worlds" is most permeable. This is the origin of the European tradition of seeing fairies and ghosts or spirits on Midsummer's and Midwinter's Eve'.

Learn more about the The Fremont Fair and Solstice Parade.

June 28^th is World War I Day.

July 2nd is the First Friday of the month and the Dunthor Open House! Click here to see details below.

July 2^nd is a Full Moon in Capricorn. The Moon and Sun are opposite each other in the sky. The Moon reflects all of the Sun's light. This is the time to perform rituals for protection, clarity of vision and consecration.

Names for the July Moons include Hay Moon, Wort Moon, Moon of Claiming, Moon of Blood (because of mosquitoes), Blessing Moon, Maedmonat (Meadow Month), Hewimanoth (Hay Month), Fallow Moon, Buck Moon, Thunder Moon.

To learn more about actively using the Moon's energy in your life, see The Moon Through the Signs and Moon Phases. These guides are located in our Library.

July 4^th is Independence Day. Time to watch LIBERTY! Click this link to learn more about “Liberty!” a series of six one-hour documentaries about the American Revolution, originally broadcast on PBS in 1997.

July 14^th is Bastille Day.

July 17^th is a New Moon in Cancer. The Moon and Sun are conjunct in the sky. The moon is dark and gradually increases to a crescent. This is the time to begin a new project, a ritual or to ask for a new vision. To learn more about actively using the Moon's energy in your life, see The Moon Through the Signs and Moon Phases. These guides are located in our Library.

July 20^th is Moon Day.

This pendant is a cabochon cut from the curve of a nautilus shell. It is wrapped in a sculpted setting of sterling silver. The chambered nautilus is an ocean dwelling cephalopod with a romantic history. Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to nautilus as “the ship of pearl” Jules Verne named his ship after it in 20,000 leagues under the sea. The nautilus appeared in Earth’s oceans in the Cambrian period several million years before the first primitive fish. The external shell of these animals provides both protection and rigid open spaces that can be filled with gas for buoyancy. They can descend to a depth of 476 meters. As far back as the ancient Greeks, the shell of the chambered nautilus has been a symbol of perfection. This shell’s shape can be described mathematically as a logarithmic spiral. Silver is a conductor of energy and is said to aid in communication, it improves the transmission of nerve impulses. According to tradition, it is a good metal for healing purposes because it is in tune with the body. Silver can reduce anxiety and help you to relax when solving problems. It is believed to help conduct the energy of stones into your body and auric field.

50.00 USD

Click here to see this item and more in my Catalog.

To learn more about how to use Gemstones in your daily life, see "What Gemstones Should I Wear?" guide in our Library.

We think of this newsletter as a community forum. You, our friends and clients, are welcome to participate. We celebrate diversity and we'll print whatever you send in be it Wiccan, Christian, Pagan, New Age, etc., as long as it reflects Love. You may choose a one-time holiday to write about or have a regular column. We'll give you space and a byline! Please send in your own book reviews, ideas for rituals, ideas about stones, your journal excerpts, your experiences and most of all, ask us questions. We love answering questions!

From Erika:

Astrological After-sex Comments  

Aries: "Okay, let's do it again!"

Taurus: "I'm hungry. Pass the pizza."

Gemini: "Have you seen the remote?"

Cancer: "When are we getting married?"

Leo: "Wasn't I fantastic?"

Virgo: "I need to wash the sheets."

Libra: "I liked it if you liked it."

Scorpio: "Perhaps I should untie you."

Sagittarius: "Don't call me. I'll call you."

Capricorn: "Do you have a business card?"

Aquarius: "Now let's try it with our clothes off!"

Pisces: "What did you say your name was again?"

Please come join in the community that has been created over the years with the friends we've made through Inga's Earth Magic. You'll find insight, sharing, healing and fellowship and you are most welcome. 

• When: The 1st Friday of every month. Please join us for dinner. We start eating around 7 PM. Or join us for dessert later on!
• Where: Our place (click on LIBRARY in the navigation bar at the top of the screen and then MAP ROOM for directions)
• What to bring: Just your enthusiasm and love! There's a big pot of pasta on the stove, salad, bread and plenty of microbrews and red wine. If you have specific preferences, please bring whatever you'd like.
• How long: Until the good conversation ends! If you'd like, you can spend the night on one of the couches with the kitties or bring your sleeping bag and mat and camp out on the floor of Inga's office.
• RSVP: Just let us know in advance via e-mail or phone if you are coming and if you are bringing guests so we don't run out of food or beer!

I’m leaving for my annual motorcycle tour in a few days. I’ll be exploring Northern California with my two brothers, Paul and Eric, and three of my riding buddies, Trevor, Joe and Jeff. If you’ve read my accounts of past rides, you know that these weeklong rides serve as a vision quest for me. Spending so many days in the saddle gives me plenty of time to clear out any blockages I find between my body, mind and spirit and by about the third day, I emerge as aligned as I can be at that point in time. With such clarity, I can mentally span the two realities represented by my conscious and unconscious minds. Usually, the vision I acquire is nothing more than spotting and acknowledging the next blockage to be healed in my body/mind/spirit alignment. Boring! I always crave some greater understanding like how to foster world peace or develop a clean, sustainable energy source but then I remind myself that my primary goal is to achieve complete alignment. (Then I’ll tackle the big stuff.) Anyway, the greater my alignment, the higher the frequency of energy I can accommodate within my body. I describe such energy as light and love and my ability to experience and use such energy as “spiritual fitness”.

So the more fit I am, the more capable I am at using that energy in my day-to-day life. My emotional state serves as an indicator of how well that energy is flowing through me. If I’m feeling anxiety or stress, the energy flow is being blocked to some extent. If I’m feeling calm, bright, humble, intuitive, confident, loving, etc., the energy is flowing. When the energy is fully flowing without impediment, my conscious mind is quiet and completely at peace. My body vibrates from head to toe with a sparkling energy. I am clairvoyant. I feel no fear because in this sacred space, Divine Mind governs with Love, Truth, Wisdom and Principle. Sin, sickness and death cannot exist here. I am fully aware of the presence of Father/Mother/God. I am fully alive and connected. The advantage of being able to function within this state while conscious is obvious. I am literally transforming my body, mind and spirit and therefore, the planet. I still cannot remain in this mode but the more I experience it, the easier it is for me to achieve it and stay there longer, hence the phase “spiritual fitness”.

Before I leave for my next vision quest, I’ll share the insight I gained from last year’s ride. On the third day of my trip, we were riding on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. My conscious mind was finally quiet. All the buzz of work and home had faded away. I was no longer busy being someone: husband, manager, motorcyclist, male, coach, boss, conservative democrat, whatever. I was purely a being of light and love, fully conscious and completely in the moment; no future or past, just now. I could see that the roles I played were societal filters that dictated what I said, did and thought. I saw them as overlays on the real, true me and I realized that I worked quite hard to perfect these personas. I could see that I believed that developing and practicing these behavioral models made me more consistent and helped to explain who I was and why I acted the way I did. By adding them up, I could see the sum of my current worldview; how I thought the world works and my role in it.

As I rode across the North Rim, I practiced shutting off these facades. I watched as my conscious mind would panic at being bared to the world and put one right back up. Each time I shut them down, I experienced being fully present with my societal filters off, my intuition fully engaged and my logical mind in quiet mode. I became acutely aware of being a part of a much larger network of consciousness, something far vaster than what I normally perceive. From this perspective, I was struck at how much noise my conscious mind really makes; all the scheming, the rationalizing, the anxieties, telling the Universe to do this and to do that. Wow! Sounds like I’m describing a bossy child, doesn’t it?

As with any vision, the trick is to figure out how to integrate it into my conscious life. I’m still working on last year’s vision and here it is time to work on getting another. Well, my inner child and I are off for a ride. I look forward to shutting him up and hearing what the rest of the biosphere has to say. – Scott Bruce Duncan */:-)

• Scott's latest website creation: Southend Motorcycle Service. Some buddies of Scott's have opened a shop in South Seattle and he's been having a blast working with them.
• The Couch Rocket: Scott has updated his Gold Wing page with a list of modifications and a new introduction.

Click on this link to visit the Amazon home page. If you buy a product through this link, Amazon will pay Inga's Earth Magic a referral fee that we'll use to help offset the cost of our web page. Thanks in advance!

Distribution via e-mail is free of charge. We feel the Internet is a great way to share knowledge and information and very compatible with the environment.

Distribution via US mail is also free but if you'd like to help offset the paper, postage and envelope costs, please send $12. That pays for 12 issues for one year. Please send a check and your name and address to the address listed below. Thanks!

We certainly hope you enjoyed our newsletter. If you are not interested in this information and would like to be removed from this mailing list, please click the e-mail link below and place the word "REMOVE" in the subject line of your message. This message is being sent to you in compliance with the Federal legislation for commercial e-mail (H.R.4176 - Section 101, Paragraph (e)(1)(a)) and Bill s.1618 Title III passed by the 105th US Congress.