Journal V: Summer
Nature has its days, both ways.
June has been unsteady, saccharine and humid. Last week, summer’s swell reduced us to a sticking hoard. AC is nice, but one can admit that heat is a formidable phenomenon. We’ve much gratitude owed to that star: the Sun is remarkable in all sense of being. Sunlight is a God, as much as matter could be, and the flora understands the language far better than we do. Outside, I can smell the sweetness of the land and feel the nurturing spirit of the heavens. Their conversation transpires at my expense. It is so hot.
Summer is liminal. More than winter (survival has its charm); as upsetting as spring and as pleasant as fall. Nature’s survival is elegant and true in its unravelling, and a delight to aid. Summer activities all are wonderful. Still, there is a pervasive indolence that seizes the spirit. Heat, bugs, and pollen drive the senses to their limit some days and we repent often for these encounters. Much preferable is it in our summer suffering to have been near a warm wood stove as the sleet billows on a bad day in February. Comfort is relative.
When I have been able to endure nature this June, I have tried to be present as a thing among things rather than a conscious entity adjacent to the material earth. Forest bathing is fair, but I’d adore to be tossed out with the bathwater as well. Nature is not a temptress, a mistress, or an enemy. It is our parent. Terra firma. We’d be foolish to disdain it and ignorant to betray it. Unfortunately, this philosophy has been absent from our shared culture. It is so hot.
Climate crisis aside, it is worth considering—beyond survival—the practical application of deep reverence for Earth and Cosmos. One needn’t be spiritual to acknowledge the Greatness and Grace of Them as still we all practice such a love for our home. We cannot help it. So many marvel for the eclipse, so many for the seasons. Nature is our ally, but indifferent to politics. We are a sigh for nature, one of many sighs. We ought to be grateful for the indolence of Nature that made us. We ought to be grateful for the freak chance of the Cosmos that created the conditions for our becoming.
I have hope that we can endure the heat. It is raining today. It has been raining for the past three days. After the rain, the heat will come again, and July will have us sticky once more. I have read and heard some concerning things about the future of our planet’s climate. I am not educated enough to comprehend the veracity of these things, but I think Pascal’s Wager ought to suffice for decision-making when it comes to the fate of Earth. I’d rather hedge my bets on catastrophe than to be woefully underprepared for whatever may come. Certainly, the years have already shown their share of strange weather. I could not be surprised by catastrophe when it does occur — and I do think it will. We ought to be grateful for the comfort of the weather now. We ought to hold space for our own insignificance. But it is so hot.
I hope you all stay cool out there.