Summer is here!
A light scent of jasmine fills the air, replacing the smell of raised dust and apple dishwashing soap and dirty laundry being collected for wash tomorrow while soft music plays.
It is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which means Summer is here. It also means it’s time for me to clean the house.
To remove not only the accumulation of dust and grunge, but the ghosts and memories that linger as well. The thoughts of yesterday and worries of tomorrow are removed with the clutter and excess and placed carefully in the same bag that carries the things I have no need for in my home. In years past I have burned the garbage collected today. With it would burn the bills and frustrations of the year along with letters of things I wanted to let go of and intentions of things I wanted to bring to life. I don’t have that option today. Today, all are placed carefully, respectfully, in the garbage.
The solstices are reminders that life works in cycles… not linearly.
It can be easy to think “I have a beginning, a middle, and end” but that’s not really true. I am like the cycle of seasons. While this vessel I inhabit for a short time may already be a little past it’s Summer Solstice and creeping closer towards Winter, I am like the cycle of seasons and sun and moon and forests and stone and water. I wax and wane. Bloom and seed. Firm and crumble. Torrent and evaporate. Over and over again.
I won’t worry about Winter today, or any day, because I’ll be back the following Spring. Nor will I ruminate on yesterday, I’ve taken that out with the trash.
No, today I am as full as the day, with today.
Blessed Solstice!
Image: Hitoshi Nomura / Fergus McCaffrey, via http://fergusmccaffrey.com/artworks/analemma-91-noon/.
Images like this are made by taking a picture at noon from the same time of the day in the same place over the period of a year. The top of the narrow end of the analemma represents the summer solstice.
Share this!
