Summer Solstice
in search of blessings
It is oddly quiet as night falls on the longest day. The crickets hum in unison as the moon casts a wide berth of light, a halo that feels like celestial arms outstretched to welcome the darkness back to the sky. On this solstice night, even the moon conspires to pour light from itself, turning the blackness indigo. The stars appear one by one by one, tiny miracles playing second fiddle to the grandeur of the Strawberry Moon which will reach fullness in less than 24 hours.
Kiki, our porch cat, dances in front of her food bowl which I fill at this unlikely hour thanks to a feral who recently cracked the code to Kiki’s actual mealtime and cases the joint each morning at 7a. I sit on the porch steps as she purrs and eats, eats and purrs. I look to the moon for answers.
Summer solstice is a time for renewal and abundance says every almanac and website ever. This is the height of the harvest, the longest day, a time for celebration. This year, though, I have so many questions.
An existential chatter builds at the edges of my days, a murmuring, a feeling I can’t quite make out in the midst of the run from sunup to sundown. The familiar cycle of the week pushes me along, sometimes thoughtlessly, but I can hear something beckoning in the quiet hush when the world slows and tilts on its axis.
In her latest essay on Home + The World, my friend Jodi wrote: “Solstice is here, the light at its glory and zenith, the dark encroaching soon, and bless it. Life continues to insist upon life, to fruit from the very death that wrought the most unbearable grief, light from dark, dark from light, whether or not we go outside, whether or not we notice it, whether or not we fast and we weep and we pray, whether or not we feast on pineapples and cherries and berries and Korean melons and key lime pies, whether or not we remember to go to the swimming pool or the river or the ocean or baptize ourselves in the fountain and start our life all the way over again. So we might as well notice it, we might as well weep; we might as well feast and swim and start anew.”
I search for blessings in my own way, barefoot on a Sunday picking chamomile flowers from my front garden in a flat-footed squat. I pinch the fragrant flower heads from their stems and toss them into a container. I will dry them for tea and drink their calming medicine.
In the borage patch one weekday, my husband Jamie hands me a plastic green bucket and a pair of small scissors. We position ourselves on each side of the row and work our way down, snipping the blue flowers, letting them float into our hands before depositing them into the bucket. Bumblebees burrow their fat bodies into the tiny flowers, their bee butts wiggling while they work. The honeybees flit from blossom to blossom, collecting the nectar to bring back to their hive communities. They buzz in chorus. I snip, snip, listening to the metal of the scissors scraping blade against blade. I wait patiently for a knowing to return.
While I wait, the farm is alive with squash and its blossoms, crisp, quenching cucumbers, and bins of pinto gold potatoes smooth as a baby’s head. Flashes of nasturtium blossoms burn bright yellow and red in clusters. Wash bins remain full of little gem lettuces and tomatoes ripen on the vine. Crops are both on time and late. We are keeping up, we are falling behind, we are through another week and then we are halfway through another year. Jamie is thinking about fall and winter. I am thinking about the work of a summer schedule that is ripe to bursting with events. We celebrate three years in operation next Sunday with a hot dog party and a community pie baking contest.
And so another summer season moves along in its triumph and losses. We all carry so much, even the farm, which lost an employee right at season’s turn. It sorted itself, but not without a small upheaval at the absolute worst time of the farming year. We carry on. We have three new pairs of hands now, including our former farm gal Liz who left to birth her first child and has returned, in a brand new season herself.
Beneath the nearly full moon, I think about a man I saw standing on the edge of Highway 74 with a piece of yellow legal paper folded into a small square of a sign, his burning blue eyes searching outward at the line of cars, waiting for someone to look back. The sign, inscribed with three words, read: “Why Am I?”
On the shortest night after the longest day, on a porch drenched in moonlight and quiet, I contemplate something similar. Kiki flicks her fluffy black tail in my direction and for a small moment, there are no questions, only prayer and light.
FIELD NOTES
+ I recently listened to this gorgeous audiobook about Mary Oliver and it was soul-nourishing, especially in this contemplative moment. Find it on Spotify and Audible. It is full of delightful voices like Ross Gay and Samin Nosrat and, of course, Mary Oliver reading her own poetry. A beautiful meditation.
+ It’s time for summer salads and easy dressings.
+ We are headed into a season of events beginning with Sunday Supper this weekend with our friends at L’Ostrica.
+ The Charlotte Observer compiled a list of all the farm-ish events happening in the region. Check the list for the bulk of our happenings.
I love this piece so much Keia