Last Day Of Summer 2018

Our backyard woods are beautiful this time of year.

Today is the last day of summer. That kind of snuck up on me. 

After a summer filled with many sunny days and high temperatures and humidity, I don't think I am mentally prepared for the cool weather conditions that we have shifted into already. 

I am happy to not have permanent heat exhaustion any more, although it was nice not needing bothersome things like clothes or blankets or supplemental heat for a few months. 

That really simplifies things.

This was the second summer drought in the last 3 years in our area. Many of our neighbours had the unfortunate experience of having a well go dry, again. You can't run a household without water. No water, no home.

We had a bit of a deterioration in our well's water quality, but not in quantity. It came to taste so bad that we had to pick up an on-tap filter system.

Tomorrow is the Equinox, when day and night are roughly the same length. From then until December 22, the hours of darkness increase, while our time in the sun decreases. Temperatures will rapidly drop off. 

I am beginning to come to terms with the change in season, again. Fifty-seven times I have been through this cycle, and it still feels like a surprise... or cruel joke. On the other hand, the woods changing colours, and brisk, crisp days, are something to be cherished.

We will just have to get used to getting fully dressed in the morning, after sleeping in a bed piled high with blankets. Wood stove, coats, gloves, toques (wool hats), and snow shoes now all have to be made ready. 

Problem is, my head and heart are still lounging in the garden. Onions, potatoes, carrots, and beets are still in the ground. We will can pickled beets over the weekend, while the wind and wet blow around outside. The rest can stay out for a while longer, since average first frost in this spot is some time between October 1 and 10th.

Happy last day of summer to Northern Hemispherians. Happy last day of winter to our Southern Hemispherian friends. Welcome fall/spring equinox.

Spring Joins Us Together

Replica of H. D. Thoreau’s 150 sq. ft. cabin at Walden Farm, where the author was born in 1817.

"The setting sun is reflected from the windows as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace." 

- Henry David Thoreau

Spring weather comes slowly to the Atlantic coast, but that today is officially the first full day of spring is undeniable. We have not had our first robin or hummingbird yet, but I have been watching the Sun slowly move from its winter resting place in the south toward where it is today - setting directly on the western point of the compass.

As the Sun continues its path north things will warm and our days will stretch out in a joyous northern celebration of not having to worry about your tongue sticking to cold metal objects any more.

Light, heat, and life return. We made it through another winter.

Spring/Fall equinox is always a special event, in that it creates a brief global photonic equality. Equinox means "equal night" which also means equal day. On the day of an equinox, daytime and nighttime are of approximately equal duration all over the planet.

It doesn't matter who you are, or where you are, you enjoy the same sunlight as everyone else today.

That joins us all together, and I like that.

Happy spring/fall, everyone.

Spring Is A Good Time To Celebrate All Life

All of Earth's life forms are from the same Tree of Life.

People around the world are celebrating life this week. Whether you are celebrating Eostre, the Mother Goddess, Easter, Passover, or Spring Equinox, it is all about rejoicing in the exuberance of life.

Life is something that has been woefully cheapened these days. Human beings are disturbingly expendable, and many thousands are sacrificed every week at the altar to the military-industrial complex and the lust for power, money and glory. 

How we treat non-human life is regrettably worse. We are nasty to each other, and we are deadly to the life forms that are either tasty, or that get in the way of our plans and ambitions. Billions and billions of Earth's creatures are slaughtered every year to feed humans. Many more die as a result of basic human greed.

How can one celebrate life and do it justice, while engaging in its destruction at the same time? Those fluffy yellow balls of chicks are cute, but many more like them are going to be debeaked, warehoused, then killed after short lives stuffed in cages while we steal their eggs.

Unless they are males in which case they are "quickly macerated" shortly after birth. Not exactly an image you want to think about during a celebration of life.

Like us, chickens and cows and pigs and turkeys and fish just want to live and be free. Like us, they are sentient, and that should give us pause. Spring is a good time to consider that reality.

In an article called "After 2,500 Studies, It's Time to Declare Animal Sentience Proven", cognitive ethologist Mark Bekoff writes,

"The animals will be grateful and warmly thank us for paying attention to the science of animal sentience. When we listen to our hearts, we are recognizing how much we know about what other animals are feeling and that we owe it to them to protect them however we can."

Whether the animal in question is a human or a dog or cat or fish or cow, let us reflect on how we are treating the life around us, and how we are protecting it. All life is sacred.

Listen to your heart. Celebrate Life.

Happy Spring.



Note: This is an updated and reprinted post.

Spring Is A Time To Celebrate Life

The millions of species of life on Earth are all part of a sacred spiral that binds us all.

Billions of people around the world are celebrating life this week. Whether you are celebrating Eostre, the Great Mother Goddess, or Easter, Passover, or Spring Equinox, it is all about rejoicing in the exuberance of life.

Life is something that has been woefully cheapened these days. Human beings are disturbingly expendable, and many thousands are sacrificed every week at the altar to the military-industrial complex and the lust for power, money and glory. 

How we treat non-human life is regrettably worse. We are nasty to each other, and we are deadly to the life forms that are either tasty, or that get in the way of our plans and ambitions. Billions and billions of Earth's creatures are slaughtered every year to feed humans.

How can one celebrate life and do it justice, while engaging in its destruction at the same time? Those fluffy yellow balls of chicks are cute, but many more like them are going to be debeaked, warehoused, then killed after short lives stuffed in cages while we steal their eggs.

Unless they are males in which case they are "quickly macerated" shortly after birth. Not exactly an image you want to think about on the first day of Spring.

Like us, chickens and cows and pigs and turkeys and fish just want to live and be free. Like us, they are sentient, and that should give us pause. Spring is a good time to think on that idea a bit.

In an article called "After 2,500 Studies, It's Time to Declare Animal Sentience Proven", cognitive ethologist Mark Bekoff writes,

"The animals will be grateful and warmly thank us for paying attention to the science of animal sentience. When we listen to our hearts, we are recognizing how much we know about what other animals are feeling and that we owe it to them to protect them however we can."

Whether the animal in question is a human or a dog or cat or fish or cow, let us reflect on how we are treating the life around us, and how we are protecting it. All life is sacred, and all life just wants to live.

Just like us.

Listen to your heart. Celebrate Life.

Happy Spring.

Spring

“The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.”

- Henry Van Dyke


“No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.”

― Dōgen


Time for a walk in the world outside
And a look at who I am
Originally I had no cares
And I am seeking nothing special
Even for my guests I have nothing
To offer except these white stones
And this clear spring water.

- Zen poem