Reflections on Summer...

...and the turning of the wheel

What does ‘summer’ conjure for you?

For me it is a feast for the senses: warmth on my skin; flavours in my mouth; strong scents; birdsong and loud music; beauty everywhere. I feel summer all over my body - it literally lights me up. My skin darkens easily, I spend every spare moment outside with as few clothes on as possible.

I wanted to write here every week, but the frenetic summer energy has kept me on the move and mostly away from screens. I’ve been exploring how rituals, rites of passage and ceremonies can support transformative processes for people and places impacted by conflict, all over the world. I had 48hrs in London with my team, followed by three days at a music festival with people I love. Friends and family have gathered, sharing space and food. In Scotland, people from different places, speaking different languages, tried to find common words for what happens to the body when it experiences trauma. And what we might do about that. It has been joyful and heavy, full of both connection and loneliness.

Of course, the wheel keeps on turning. Do you feel the nip in the air, early in the morning and late at night? It’s still light here until 10pm, but on rainy days the lamps go on much earlier. Over the next week we enter Lughnasa (Lugh’s assembly - thanks Emma). This ancient celebration of the Earth and her harvest feels bittersweet to me. I never feel ready to move into the dark half of the year, for rest and dreamtime.

But, a wise friend told me recently, ‘our bodies like play and they like predictability’. As someone who adores variety (and novelty), I identify with playfulness and the wildness of summer, but it has taken me longer to appreciate predictability. Seeing the wild raspberries fruiting around the same time every year. Knowing the best spots for puffballs (after an accidental discovery the year before). Making Ivan Chai. Predictability is both anchoring and comforting. And so this year I am preparing for the darkness instead of pretending it isn’t coming.

For me, that looks like being discerning about what to harvest - literally and metaphorically. No matter how much you want something to be ready, it will take its own sweet ass time (damn it). I’m wondering what I can move forward with already, and what needs longer to fruit. I am trying really hard to reserve judgement, and hardly ever succeeding. And it’s all ok…it all comes around again whether we want it to or not.

My children still have another month off school, so there will also be all the things we want to do together before routine rules once more. There is no denying the peak of summer has passed, and so it is now a question of how we move into the next stage.

I would love to know how this time of year feels wherever you are in the world. Are you celebrating, slowing down, or something else entirely?