Who is Summer
Nipëni. Καλοκαίρι. Літо (lito) poletje. Letu. Lato. Elete. lĕćo
Sommer. Simmer. Summer. Somner. Samer. Zomer. Blokétu.
Summer is childhood, in so many ways I think. Is it this way for you, too?
School is out. Lightning Bugs everywhere. Bug bites, sunkissed noses, hair is always wet, shoes are never on. Living in a bathing suit. Sand is the new carpet. Riding horses and smelling like a barn. Adventures with Grand Parents. Always at the beach. When I was a kid I would sit in the tidal zone, arms folded over shins, just sitting in the surf, waiting for barnacles to grow on me like they did the rocks I loved to hop, looking for crabs.
Summer Solstice is June 20-22: the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The ephemeral, mutable, messy chaos of Spring shifts. The Sun moves into the Cardinal, Initiating, Water sign of Cancer. Summer is a radical reorientation to E Motion all Self.
Summer is a whole ass season, and the energetics present on the solstice persist through the season: just like when the Sun moves into Aries carries all of Spring, when the Sun moves into Libra feeds all of Autumn, when the Sun moves into Capricorn infuses all of Winter. These are Holy Days. These are things we can count on.
Summer is Love. It is a Riot. It is a reckoning. What was sown took root and now fruits.
Summer asks us to be fully present to who we care for, to keep in touch with the needs for the processes of growing and coming to fullness. Summer asks us to Trust in her own special way, unfurling. Summer asks us to Labor through heat, through drought, through precarious windows of time that bloom from what we have done, that will nourish us six months from now when the seasons move to a rest that only winter can bring.
Summer is time for putting all those ideas into practice. For deep observance. For always learning, when to water, when to dig, when to seed, when to pick, when to visit the Oak and let his shade soothe.
come back soon for the next installments: who is cancer? who is water?