June 20
Summer solstice: revel of senses, revel of nature, revel of the physical. A day to go out into the sun, smell the air, see the flowers and trees, awake, vigorous, alive. Feast on strawberries and wine, walk barefoot on the earth, be roots, be tall as a tree. Today is a day for the senses, not for thoughts and words.
Tonight no sleeping - stay up and dance, under the stars and the moon, while fireflies blink, magic, like fairies, among the leaves and grasses.
The sun rose this morning at 5:02, but didn't clear the mountains until 5:29. It rises behind the north woods at this time of year.
This was the sky in the east at 5:00.
Over the west ridge a portentous cloud raven greeted the day:
This was the winter solstice sunrise. The sun breaking over the Sleeper.
*****
After the sun is gone from our lawn, it still lights up the far hills, the Sleeper.
Frog and toad: (I think that's a book...)
In the lower meadow in the middle of a copse of raspberry brambles, the only rose bush I have found on our hill.
I love these miniature worlds along the stream bed, I can imagine little fairies, bathing naked in the stream, washing their tiny dresses, perching on the stones.
Daisies, and bladder campion, whose other name is maidenstears - how, in folklore, do they "stear" maidens? .
This is the pair of apple trees by the barn: I think of them as the guardian witches, their branches are entwined. They will have lots of apples in the fall.
The silver birch on the ridge, I have imagined that he is calling to me. But I don't know what he is telling me.
The ridge pond, the world upside down:
*****
Fig in the snow, the day after the winter solstice, the day he lost his sight:
K and I miss him. When the other dogs died, I still had other dogs; after Betty, there were Shy and Fig, after Shy there was still Fig, but now he is gone and I need him to be the one still here! I didn't seem to miss the others so much, because of Fig and because I was busy managing a household with my daughter and her family. Now we have the time to feel the loss of our little companion.
*****
"Sumer is i-cumin in—
Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wude nu.
Sing, cuccu!" *
Happy summer! Be well. Thank you for visiting.
Mumma Yaga
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Happy summer!
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