Summer Solstice

Spring slides into summer...early.  Summer heat came early this year, and hot summer skies reflect my thoughts back to me. Real reflection is inward looking:  look deep inside and we don't always like what we see.  I guess we are all part fuzzy bunny and part wild beast:  it is just so hard to admit to the wild beast.

Once a year the sun reaches the furthest north in the sky that it will go.  In the north pole, eternal day light reigns.  The day stretches on and on, the sunlight glaring metallic across the sky.  The sun pales the palette of desert colors -- purples, blues, browns and reds -- into a brassy reflection of the colors of spring. The sunlight is to bright, too yellow, too hot.

Midsummer is not really midsummer, but the beginning of summer. Funny how the richest part of the year -- filled with peaches and corn, sun ripe tomatoes and summer squash -- begins as the year starts the process of winding down. The days start to diminish, one second at a time.

Summer brings a time of deep reflection. Perhaps in colder climes, winter is that time.  It is a time of withdrawing, of contemplation, of inner cleaning and inner work. Summer in the desert brings estivation, a sluggish summer sleep: time to think, not to act. It is just to hot to act.

I was reminiscing with a friend tonight.  We are in the midsummer of our lives, and our lives are so rich and full.  If you had asked either of us ten or twenty years ago where we would be now, we could never have guessed that we would end up where we are. The twists and turns of life rock us, roll us and tumble us in the cosmic polishing machine!!! I am lucky and I am happy.  I am happy in the summer of my life!!  Maybe that just comes from accepting what life has thrown at me.

Hot summer skies over Californi fan palm oasis.

summer

summer days
hot sun blinds and rages on
hot sap
rises up early then is gone

summer nights
eclipse follows gibbous moon
hot wind
sloughing over silky dune