Earlier this month our family went to laugh and clap along with the audience at the Stratford Festival’s rendition of Spamalot. It was a raucous, cheerful, disrespectful echo of Monty Python’s various shows and films. The ridiculous and absurd story lines around King Arthur’s adventures in search of the Holy Grail left us laughing and gave us plenty to replay over dinner. Underneath it all we were really laughing at ourselves because  many of our own blind spots and preoccupations can be a bit absurd in their own right.

June 21st is identified as the summer solstice – more daylight and less darkness on that day than any other this year. As we enter summer with all our hopes for rest and relaxation, recreation and renewal packed together we also begin the process of diminishing daylight each day until we reach balance around September 21st.  

We all know a person who has to be the smartest person in the room. They may be smart, but not self-aware enough to know that their desire to dominate and control is ultimately destructive no matter how good their ideas. I know I have had that tendency at times and I’ve needed help to discover that enabling the voices of others is as important to vision and action as getting your own unmodified ideas implemented.  

As we keep reading accounts of the events in Ukraine, bombs raining down incessantly on civilian populations and children dying or being wounded physically and emotionally, I can’t begin to imagine the anger in the psyches of parents and friends as they see the madness first hand and know to whom to direct the anger and hatred.