Summer Solstice

Seems Like a Lucky Number

And so, it would appear, it is. Or was? (Not that I even recalled during the day that tonight’s post was #222!)

The luck and the grace of ‘Day #222’ manifested when Karl and I managed to take a phenomenal walk early this evening. Quite unexpectedly, late this afternoon, the humidity level of the atmosphere dropped significantly. That meant we could walk and feel a cool breeze ruffle our hair. We could walk and not feel like we were going to keel over from heat exhaustion.

Best of all, it meant we could thank our bedroom air conditioner for its service the past few nights – and then promptly and almost joyously turn on the whole house fan again, throwing open the windows and opening the front door to allow cross-breezes galore.

A Solstice Stroll

The canvas of the sky seemed irresistible to the clouds. They created unbelievable landscapes and played hide and seek with the sun as it set on the longest day of the year: the Summer Solstice.

Considering I wrote a post on the shortest day of the year, I just want to say how boggled my mind is to realize I’ve been writing posts through two solstices now. (I’d also like to parenthetically comment on how grateful I am that I didn’t have another intense encounter today like I did on the Winter Solstice.)

And I know; I can do the math. Obviously, since I’m on Day 222, I technically passed the “halfway through the year’ mark back when I was at Amadell. In fact – and WOW, I did not realize this until this moment – the halfway-through-my-first-year of my 1111 Devotion was Mother’s Day.

Somehow that seems appropriate. That ‘synchronicity’ makes me smile.

Alas, No Fire

I’d love to say that Karl and I had a Solstice fire this evening to honor and celebrate this longest ‘day’ of the year. But we didn’t. It was a long week. And the best we could muster was hauling our bones around the ‘walk-about’ (the four mile version of our countryside excursions) and simply delighting in the rays of sunshine slanting through cracks in the clouds and listening to the scratchy gratch of red-winged blackbirds that seemed to be announcing our passage beside their meadow homes.

Silly, I know, but I feel a tug in my heart revealing my truth: I don’t want the days to get shorter again. “Not yet,” I hear myself whispering.

But that’s the way it is. That’s the way life is: a series of never-ending cycles, changes, and moments.