close encounters
The June Love List: I watched, read, saw, and experienced this month
It’s the last day of June, and here’s the list of things I loved this month. (This post is long, so if you’re reading in your email, you’ll have to click through to the website to read the whole thing.)
✨Glimmers:
Tracy and I went to the summer classics series to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the Kentucky. It was a movie that had such an impact on our generation, even those of us who were too young to see it. It was fun to experience it on the big screen. Also, we hadn’t gone to the movies in a long time.
Rocky celebrated his 13th birthday and shared his cake with some dog neighbors, and then one of his human neighbors brought him homemade cookies. So sweet.
We celebrated Father’s Day with my parents by watching the live stream of my niece’s college graduation. I’m so proud of her and what she’s accomplished over the past four years, but mostly I’m proud of her and her sibling for being brilliantly kind and compassionate people.
The hummingbirds arrived and immediately started drinking from the Blazing Star and Bee Balm. The feeling of growing a plant because it’s known to attract hummingbirds, then watching the hummingbirds land on it, is so fulfilling.
☕️ Things I watched, read, and listened to this month:
The Kaitlyn’s Baby season of The Con
The Last Lighthouses of the Hudson Valley. (You may remember when Tracy, Rocky, and I visited the Saugerties lighthouse.)
Brick by brick: How you live your day is how you live your life.
The Link Between Covid, Capitalism, and the Cult of Skinniness
Did you see Audra McDonald’s Rose’s Turn at the Tony Awards?
I enjoy lower-budget documentaries, and this was an interesting one.
📓 From my notebook this month:
The truth is, most people are good. We are wired for empathy, kindness, and cooperation. We care for one another’s suffering. Love is our default setting. It’s what we are.
If you are feeling emotionally overwhelmed right now, it means you are aware. You can see. You are awake. It means you’re not turning a blind eye.
Those who seek to control us need us to stay shut down in fear, shock, and overwhelm. That’s what they feed on.
Truly horrible things are happening; hopeful things are also happening.
This is the time for us to be proactive rather than reactive and hold the vision of what we want the world to be, and how we want to live together.
Taking action, anchoring peace — all the grounded practical stuff and woo-woo stuff—it’s all important right now. Your nervous system is important. Your meditation practice is important. Your prayers are important. Your heart is important. Your voice is important. Your art is important.
That thing you’ve always dreamed about? The book you want to write, the images you want to create, the poems that scrape around in your blood, the trip you’ve always wanted to take, the class they’re offering down at the library…now is the time. Now is the time to anchor your love and live.
Don’t allow the meanness of heartless people to hijack your imagination.
Be discerning. Trust yourself.
Be yourself.
In the pain of this moment, know that we are also building something new. Please be who you came here to be, because this is how we save one another. This is how we hold one another. This is how we heal - personally first, then in community.
When we do the true inner work of this moment, the energies that thrive with smoke and mirrors will wither away. When we tend to our inner landscape, we can tend to the world. This is deep soul work. And we were born for it.
I love you.
Thank you for reading.
I’m Lori-Lyn. I’m a writer, intuitive guide, and artist exploring creativity, spirituality, and culture. I share personal stories, cultural reflections, and spiritual insight on Creative Living Diaries, where I am also currently publishing my spiritual memoir Cosmic Heart. Subscribers also join me live on the full and new moons. 🌜
In case you missed them, this month’s posts:
Thank you. 🙏🏽🤍