Today marks the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice.

Of course, for those living in the southern hemisphere, today is the first day of winter.  We hope you're having a good day, wherever you live, as we welcome and celebrate this new season Nature shares with us.

Please enjoy this poem about the specialness of a summer day by Mary Oliver, shared from the Mary Oliver Facebook Page.

Click on the picture above to go the World Oceans Day website for lots more info, resources, action you can take, etc.   To learn more about one person's opinion on how the oceans can and will help climate change and the sea's "power to heal," click on this article, To Save the Climate, Look to the Oceans by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.  As she points out, it's more than the emotional healing that we know Nature brings, but also providing "climate solutions."

Do you love fireflies (or lightning bugs as some of us call them)?  Maybe they remind you of your childhood summers.  Do you like traveling to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park?  Relax and enjoy the combination of beautiful scenery and flickering lights virtually via video by clicking on the picture below.  

Today is World Environment Day...Time for Nature.  Celebrated on June 5th since 1974, World Environment Day has a theme this year of biodiversity.  For lots more good information, click on this UN site, take the quiz, learn more about Nature and pandemics, and check out some other links related to biodiversity.  Enjoy your weekend and hope you get to spend a little time in the beautiful outdoors!

This article entitled ​Mystical Experience of Jane Goodall, Ph.D, was shared in our Facebook group recently.  If you consider pantheism your spiritual path, you might be interested in reading this.  But even if you are a pantheist who prefers to avoid any references to words like "spiritual" or "religious" or "mystical," you may have had your own experience of intense feelings of awe and connection out in the wilds of Nature, and as Goodall seems to describe it, an increased heightening of the senses, a deep feeling of connection and merging with Nature, with the All, an experience to be remembered. We pantheists may look at things differently sometimes or describe them in varying terms, but Nature is one thing that unites us.​

(Photo from the IMERE website, accompanying the above-mentioned article)

June is here, the month of summer solstice, occurring this year on Saturday, June 20th (more about that later), but there are lots of other cool things going on this month, too, with the stars, moon, planets, and an asteroid. Learn what the Summer Triangle is!  Click here on the space.com website to find out more about the night sky events happening during the month of June.  As always, remember to look up!
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​(Photo courtesy of space.com)