Hello All,
Well it is official summer vacation started yesterday for the girls. Today’s
plans include walking to the nursery to replace their plants, which were
frost killed right after they planted them last week.  Usually it doesn’t
get cold enough to have frost at this time of year. I told the girls they
will pick out their own plants this time instead of my doing it.

We spent yesterday at my Mom’s and came home with a couple dozen chocolate
cupcakes. My oldest daughter also brought an award home from school. It
included a certificate and a pin. It was The President's Education Awards
Program in recognition of outstanding Academic Excellence. Only three, 5th
graders in her school received it. So I am having a very proud Mom day.

I also am going to be receiving three borage plants for my herb garden, said
oldest daughter loves to munch on their leaves and they are a very showy
herb plant. I know just where I am going to plant them as well. I just wish
I had a lot more space for gardening. I tell people I am herbsessed and they
believe me.

My husband is trying to be routed home so I am hoping that I can see him
here soon. He is very missed.

Instead of a poem this week, I have part of a newspaper article and an link
to the rest of it. It is on the plight of the honeybee in the United States.

Oh well that is it for my little corner of Iowa.

So until next time,
Sheila K. Watkins
Editor: Whispers of a Stone Circle
See last page of this newsletter for submission guidelines, forwarding
guidelines, where you can subscribe to Whispers and copyright information.
~*~*~*~
Honeybees in a Mite More Than Trouble
Parasites, an Exodus of Apiarists and Budget Cuts Imperil Vital Insect

By Adrian Higgins
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 14, 2002; Page A01

In recent years, two tiny spider-like parasites have been weakening and
killing bee populations across the United States. While the mass media have
played up the threat of Africanized "killer" bees in the Southwest, the rest
of the country has been losing 80 percent or more of its wild honeybee
populations.

Only people living within a mile or two of a beekeeper have much chance of
seeing the industrious, golden-bodied insect at work on a flower. For
everyone else, this icon of the garden and orchard might as well be extinct.

In the garden this means a scant harvest of cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and
other vegetables requiring insect pollination, as well as feeble flowering
and fruiting of many ornamental trees and shrubs. Wildflowers are not
reseeding themselves as they should.

Rest of story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11354-2002May13.html

~*~*~*~
Cool Link(s) of the week:
Papa Crow’s Pagan Puzzles:
http://www.ravensweb.com/papacrow/puzzles.html

~*~*~*~
Meditation: Water
By Sheila K. Watkins

As always dress in a comfortable manner and find a comfortable place to sit.
It would be a good idea to cast a circle of protection around you as you
will be dealing with a spirit at this time. (Information on how can be found
at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WhispersOfAStoneCircle/message/67 )

Close your eyes and run through the colors, seeing each one as you do so. It
doesn’t matter how long you see them but make sure you do see them.

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet or purple

See yourself step out of the purple and into a hallway. Start walking down
it partway down you notice fountains pour water into basins along various
points along the wall. Each fountain in the shape of a sea spirit, a
merperson, a selkie, perhaps even those considered monsters. You could them
starting at 19 and working your way down.

19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

At one, the hallway opens up to an open area. Before you is water as far as
the eyes can see, small waves splash up around your ankles and you feel
drawn into wading out into the sea. You step down one step  then another and
another. Finally you are treading water, you look back and the doorway
leaving this realm seems very far away.

The seas grow rougher around you, pushing you further out. You look at your
arms as you continue to tread water and you notice that you are starting to
turn into water. Your skin is matching that of the waves around you. The
head of a sea spirit pops out of the waves in front of you and greets you,
beckoning you to follow.

You dive under the waves breathing the water as easily as you can air. You
follow the spirit diving deeper and deeper towards the bottom of the sea.
You see a castle sitting on the sands and follow the sea spirit to it. You
follow the spirit to a courtyard, a garden of sea life and sit upon a bench
made of coral.

There you listen to what the sea spirit has to teach you.

When S/he is done, you thank him or her and swim upward. You find yourself
at the steps and walk upward towards the door leaving this realm. You switch
back to human with each step and then walk through the doorway.

Enter the hall and start counting the fountains.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

Continue walking up the hallway and enter the purple (or violet) light. See
the colors once more.

Purple
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red

As the red fades away open your eyes and you are awake.

~*~*~*~
Announcement(s):

Pagan religious sites and the Webby Awards

Every year awards are given for the best web sites on the Net. The awards
are The People's Choice awards. There are nominations in many categories to
check out and vote on. Voting is open until June 7.

Wouldn't it be great to see a Pagan site win the Spirituality Award? Right
now, The Witches Voice is the site leading the voting. It was not one of the
'formally' nominated sites, but is winning the poll right now (as of Monday
morning) with 35% of the write in votes. Their site, for those of you who
might not be familiar with it, is:
www.witchvox.com

This is not a piece of fluff vote, folks. The award is taken seriously in
the Internet community.

If you would like to vote, or see the sites that have been nominated in
various categories, please go to:
http://www.webbyawards.com/peoplesvoice/index.html and take a moment to
register and then vote.

Officers of Avalon

Greetings:

Something extraordinary is about to happen. Something that has never
happened before. What started as an e-group for Pagan emergency personnel is
turning into the first international organization for Pagan emergency
personnel: Officers of Avalon. We've obtained the domain name
(www.officersofavalon.org) and one of our members is working on our web site
even as I write this. Even more extraordinary, we are now working toward the
first ever international gathering of Pagan cops, firefighters, paramedics,
and EMTs ever held. We are just now discussing where and exactly when this
event should take place. The two locations suggested are Las Vegas and
Washington DC.

Officers of Avalon wants to show the world that we follow a valid and
respectable spiritual path. We want to show the people of the free world
that some of the people who are defending that freedom are Pagans like us.
We want to establish a support network for those Pagans within the emergency
services who do not yet feel that they can safely make their Pagan beliefs
public.

I've volunteered to be the spokesperson for this new organization. We're
looking for your support. If any of you know of any Pagan emergency
personnel out there, please pass this information on to them. If any of you
can help in any way, please contact us.

25 years ago I was the first Wiccan cop to come out of the broom closet.
Please help us let all of the other Pagans working to make you safe come out
as well.

Bright Blessings
Kerr Cuhulain
KCuhulain@aol.com
Officers of Avalon

~*~*~*~
Writer's Biographies:

Sheila K. Watkins knew from the time she was 15 that she wanted to be a
writer but did not really start writing until she entered college where she
worked on her college newspaper and also worked as the editor of the feature
section for one semester. She was also introduced to the love of writing
poetry at this time. Fortunately for all of us most of the poems have been
lost to the world of men. After college she worked several jobs during the
next few years but none included writing. It wasn’t until after both of her
children had started school in 1998 that she went back to her love of
putting words on a computer screen. Her first submission was accepted by
publication by the IOWAN newsletter and it started her on the path of truly
honing her work. In October of 2000, she founded and became editor of
Whispers of a Stone Circle.

~*~*~*~
Submissions are always welcomed and can be made to: Zeliziw@netins.net
In submitting materials writers are agreeing that if accepted I may post
them in the newsletter and on the web page (whenever I finally get back to
work on it.) Works submitted must be the writer’s own work and they must
still retain the copyright OR it must be verifiably public domain. Works can
have been published before but please nothing that has been around over and
over again. Copyright remains in the author’s possession. The Author also
realizes that they will not be paid. (If I had money I would be hosting this
on something other then Yahoo.) If a submission is accepted, I will check
for punctuation, capitalization and spelling in submitted articles. I will
fix minor errors if they are present. I will NOT reword things (except for
an occasional “an” for “a” and vice versa.) Poems are published as
submitted.

Forwarding information: If you chose to forward this newsletter, do so in
its entirety, including copyright and contact information. People may
subscribe to Whispers of A Stone Circle at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WhispersOfAStoneCircle/


All articles, poems, etc, except where noted are copyrighted by the writers
and are used with permission. They are not to be republished without the
express permission of the writers. Contact information may be obtained by
contacting the editor of Whispers of A Stone Circle at Zeliziw@netins.net

Copyright (c) 2002 Sheila K. Watson.
All Rights Reserved