Late Summer days buzz with activity; they ride waves burgeoning with abundance and growth. Options emerge with the sunlight and warmth, urging participation in play and productivity, in rest and fun.
These waves of busyness arrive soon after the sun lifts above the tree tops. The rising swell collects me and then sweeps me along onto a trajectory of motion. I dream up plans and possibilities, projects and play. I resemble an insect who darts from here to there, moving so quickly, from one point of interest to the next, that I feel barely visible. It feels rare when I do find myself sitting still, to just be. Or to just listen.
I wonder about this ambition for activity.
My desire to fill the warm and inviting days results in more time engaging, and less time relaxing.
Meanwhile, summer shines on, flourishing and inviting. Twirling invisible tendrils of magic in the air. The sun smiles through it all with beneficence, magnanimously offering radiance, regardless of what we do or don’t do.
And in all the movement, I find myself beginning to crave quieter,
inner balance, to simply
reach stillness.
So, yes, while my gardens would dearly appreciate a weeding, and the paths would love a clearing of debris, or my floor a washing…. I want to find the precious gift of lying on the earth with empty space, to feel the luxurious summer breezes waft by, and watch them tussle the hair of the trees, brushing their limbs back and forth, like waves on the sea. I want to allow my imagination to fill in the spaces of the unknown without agenda; I want to sit and breathe in deeply the sounds of late summer, breathe in scents from exotic realms, and listen attentively to the birds’ announcing the coming Autumn.
This stillness is hard to create, that is, until the arrival of twilight. Then at the hush of night's edge, I find myself dropping whatever trajectory I was on (perhaps filling the hummingbird feeder, picking up firewood, or...) and I allow myself the gift of pause. I give myself the moment to inhale and feel stillness filling in the cracks of now.
I sit and lean back to listen, watch and feel. I feel the coolness of the night seeping in. I hear the last calls of the cardinals’ chirp, and the buzz of crickets. I smell the transition from late summer to autumn. Hurry melts from me just as quickly as it arrived. Night song begins.
Come, Linger with me now,
watch, with me the pink emerge
as sunset glides in.
Watch the changes of twilight slowly cover the sky
and then drip onto us, igniting our skin like a shimmering of light here on Earth.
I wrap you in this magic ~
And here, in this moment, we will drink tea, watch dragonflies, and sing and toast the night.
