The summer solstice has just passed and the earth has begun
its slow tilt back toward the winter solstice.
The days that have been lengthening since Christmas are now shortening again. The change isn’t pronounced yet – the hottest
weather of the year has yet to come and the sun still shines well into the
evening – but for those that live in relationship with natural systems it means
a subtle but real shift in the year. The
spring rush of growth is done and the trees and other plants have started
storing their winter starches and ripening their fruit. The greens turn from vibrant and light to
darker and more deep. The change isn’t
just in the plants though.
The humans in this system also know that a shift is happening. The summer has only just begun but for the grower,
winter is coming already. The rush of
spring planting and planning is over; the garden is growing; summer crops are
getting their legs and setting first fruits while spring staples are fading. For us, we will celebrate the start of summer
with food – creamed peas and new potatoes are the meal that says summer for us
and we have eaten it every year that we have had a garden big enough to grow
them. The meal is bittersweet and
delicious – a celebration of the start of the harvest season and also a
reminder that time is already running out to get food put up. We are thankful that we don’t have to count
only on what we grow for our annual nourishment. The safety net of modern society and the
grocery store make the rush to put up the harvest a little less pressing and
stressful.
I’m finding this year more than many others that the
solstice is also bringing an introspection.
At 40, I relate to this time of year more deeply. I am now at or just past the solstice of my
life – I am not getting stronger or taller, I have spent my youthful energy and
now am settled into my life’s pattern. I
feel much like the trees with my arms stretched to familiar sunshine enjoying
the built up years of work already done while still trying to reach a little
farther into the warmth. It has been a
good first 40 years by any measure, but the celebration is bittersweet. My children will move on from me soon and the
house will feel empty. While I can still
do a hard day’s work now, I know the time is coming where I will have to slow
down. My knees and shoulders already
tell me that I am not the 25 year old that started this journey so many years
ago. I know my winter is coming even as
I celebrate my life’s summer.
I think in some ways this is the greatest gift of living in
relationship with the land. The annual cycles
of birth, growth, maturity, decline and death are comforting in their
familiarity and humbling in their inevitability. As I walk with my plants and animals through
this cycle, I know that I too am going through the same cycle. I know my own mortality deeply. I know that there is no way out of my own
physical decline and eventual death just as there is no way to avoid the coming
winter. I will celebrate the summer
harvest as I celebrate my own growth to this point and all that it has
created. I will watch as each crop
declines just as I will one day not be able to keep the pace I do now. I will watch the leaves turn in the fall just
as my hair and skin will change and are changing already. I will see the first frost kill the last of
the summer crops just as one day I will have to stop doing things I love. The world will go to sleep under a blanket of
snow and I too will sleep one day with only memories to remind those who know
me of what I was once like.
These changes are inevitable and ultimately welcome. When we focus only on one time of year or of
life, then we miss the beauty of the others.
I would not want to have a year without the autumn leaves or the crisp
mornings of fall and I don’t think I would consider my life fully lived if I
did not get to enjoy the young adulthood of my children and celebrate their life’s
spring with them, perhaps offering some wisdom gained from my own spring and
summer. I look forward to the coming of
age of the trees I plant this year. I will
walk more slowly under their shade than I do now and I will need help to care
for them, but what a wonderful autumn to my life to see their flowers in the
spring time and their leaves in the fall.
While I don’t look forward to the cold of winter, I do enjoy the wood
stove and the time to rest with family.
I hope that the winter of my life will be filled with the warmth of love
and the deep rest of a life well lived.
As I stand on the farm on this year’s solstice and recognize
my own life’s solstice, it is profoundly grounding and real. I feel immersed in nature’s rhythm and I am
enjoying my small part in this great dance.
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