Summer Solstice

It's the longest day of the year! I love the irony that this, the inaugural day of summer and the hottest months of the year, also ushers in the start of shorter days. Granted, it will be several months before the lazy late nights shift significantly earlier, but after today it's all downhill until the winter solstice.

The full moon of June, which was on the 9th, is the Strawberry Moon, because this is the month strawberries start to ripen. I got my first real harvest (other than one or two here and there) a few days ago. Aren't they lovely?

Yeah, so they vary in size from a pea to a large grape, but that's okay. They are nothing like the strawberries available in the store, but they're sweet and delicious and the beauty of a small patch is that there's nothing to be done with them besides eat them straightaway.

Most of the spring flowers have faded off; my pretty yellow bushes have turned to green, the purple spikes of the salvia are temporarily exhausted (they'll be back in a few weeks), and the sage and thyme are finished blooming too. Next up will be the daisy I bought last year at the end of the season - which promptly died, but is coming back nicely - and with any luck, the lilies I planted three years ago. I keep getting plenty of healthy green stalks and no flowers whatsoever. In a fit of annoyance last week I told them that if they don't flower this year I'm yanking them all out to replace them with something that will give some summer color! I don't even remember what color these were supposed to be!

I may or may not follow through on that. I feel guilty pulling up plants; I pulled out the anemic and perpetually diseased rose bushes early in spring, and felt bad the whole time I was hacking at the four-inch-thick roots with my spade (I really need to invest in more garden tools, this was not really the tool for this task). My mother told me my grandmother used to talk to her plants - and she had a zillion of them, all over the house, racks on the patio, a huge Florida yard full of mango trees and other exotic flora I don't really remember - and that she swore by this as a part of their care.

I do this too. I like to chat with them as I'm watering them every week, checking out their leaves and the state they're in. Plant care seems to have skipped a generation from my grandmother to me - my mother rarely had real plants in the house, she preferred the plastic ones. To this day I'm not sure if she had a black thumb or if she just didn't like the idea of the bugs they can bring into the house. She was a bit of a clean freak.

Just a hunch. 

No plastic plants for me! To be fair, I have seen plenty of plants to an early death. I transplanted my parsley that lived a nice quiet life in my kitchen window out into the garden a few weeks ago, and it was thriving, until a couple of days ago when all the leaves mysteriously disappeared. I think I know the culprit on that one though. -->

The lavender is blooming earlier than I remember as being "usual," so I've pulled a few bunches to dry for later use. They are messy bushes but I love them.

Summer has begun and it's time for the heat. I am not, personally, a fan. If I had my druthers (what a great phrase, we really need to bring back some of those old phrases) it would never get above 75. Alas, Gaia does as she sees fit and cares not for my personal comfort zone.

Happy Solstice and may you all have a beautiful summer.

Strawberry Solstice

The summer solstice was yesterday, coinciding with the full moon. This hasn't happened since 1967, and won't happen again until 2062. I had no idea they were so rare.

http://yourtake.9news.com/media/20911710

So today marks the first full day of summer, though it's felt like it for the last week or so with temperatures in the nineties. I have a love/hate relationship with summer. Love the long days, green growth everywhere, lingering dawns and sunsets, Hate the oppressive heat, the blistering sun, the sad shift in the landscape from green growth to dry yellow straw.

Though I do have to admit it's a glorious moment when I walk out of my meat locker of an office into the heat of the day.

June is the Strawberry Moon, as now is the month that strawberries are producing. My patch is doing really well! I've taken a few every day for the last week or so, along with a few handfuls of spinach from the veggie patch for an awesome little salad. I love getting meals out of my garden.

Strawberry Moon is also known as Rose Moon, Honey Moon, Lotus Moon, Green Corn Moon, Planting Moon, Horse Moon. Following the moon's cycles is probably the oldest means of marking the passage of time we know, and a lunar calendar is still used in many places.

It's remarkable how accurately we've managed to break down the turning of the year by just watching the moon and the sun. They are gods and goddesses in most ancient traditions: Sol, Apollo, Sunni, Mani, Selene, Artemis.

Why not? Without them, we wouldn't exist. 

Hail Aurora

Her rosy-fingered dawn was particularly spectacular this morning. I pulled this from the Internet because I don't have much luck capturing these shots, so imagine a scene very much like this only with a couple of houses in the foreground instead of the mountains. The colors are much the same.

I find it interesting that I live in Aurora, a city named after the old Greek goddess of the dawn (and, of course, of spectacular light shows at the poles). A few years ago, they erected a statue of the goddess on a pillar at the top of a specially created hill, just off of I-225 at the entrance to the Aurora Mall (and the Aurora Town Center, which is on the other side of the street). Sadly, this is the only image I can find of it, but there she is, greeting all who enter Aurora. From I-225 and Alameda. Heading eastbound.

There was, predictably, some controversy when this mound and statue were erected. A few folks grumbling about putting up the symbol of a pagan goddess. Not much came of it, though, and apparently the majority decided that the city being named after her and all, it wasn't wholly inappropriate to honor her in this way.

(In all reality, I'm guessing someone just thought it would be a cool statue and didn't put much thought of goddesses into it at all. Most monotheistic believers seem to think the pagan gods are not real.)

In any case, it's interesting that I live in a city named for a pagan goddess, and one who evokes my favorite time of the day as well. In recent years I've realized that everything in my life has culminated in putting me exactly where I need to be. Maybe it's a symbolic stretch, but hear me out.

My house is on Flanders street and was previously owned by a couple named Bender. My favorite cartoons are The Simpsons and Futurama.

A block from this house is Sunrise Park. The park is connected to an elementary school and has a large open field behind it where a prairie dog colony makes its home. At the top of the hill, there's a platform marking the solstices and equinoxes. This is where I watch the sunrise on the solstices, and the sunsets at the equinoxes. (And it's not perfectly aligned, no, but the fact that it's there makes me think there was a reason we looked at 40-something houses before choosing this one.)

I am passionate about the environment and the well-being of the Earth, obviously. I landed a job with the department of health and environment. The environmental side of the department, where I work, consists of the Air Pollution, Water Quality, and Hazardous Materials divisions. I'm with Haz, protectors of Earth. I am a Fire sign - Sagittarius.

It's all coming together. Haha!

Maybe it's all coincidence, but somehow I don't think so. For the first time in my life I feel I am where I need to be. Perhaps it's just a fantastic side effect of entering my 40s and realizing that it's okay to like myself as I am, to actually enjoy my accomplishments and feel satisfied with today while striving for more, to own everything about who I am and what I believe and what I want. Perhaps this really is just something that comes with age, along with the realization that you don't need to care what others think of you too much. Because the truth is, most people aren't thinking of you. What's the joke? "Dance like nobody's watching... because they aren't... they're checking their phones."

I had a get-together yesterday for the Broncos game (victory! yay!) and would like to thank everyone who came over to hang out with an introvert who seldom wants company but feels it very keenly when she asks for it and people say "not now." So, a big thank you to my friends, who accept me as I am, and validate this crazy notion that maybe we are all okay just as we are.

Cold Moon

It seems this is the first full moon to fall on Christmas since 1977. Can't see it tonight, unfortunately. It's been cloudy for most of the night here in my corner of Colorado.

Interestingly, I moved from Florida to Colorado in 1977. I'd just turned six, so I don't remember it.

It snowed today, a relatively rare white Christmas. Only an inch or two, but it was welcome all the same - there's something about the crisp cold air and a soft falling snow that just makes the holiday feel more...authentic.

I grew up Catholic, but I've been Pagan for many years now, and no longer celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Nevertheless, the day holds a special place in my heart and memories, and I struggled for some years with the dilemma of whether or not I could continue to observe it. I've decided there's no reason why I can't embrace the turning of the wheel at Yule and still enjoy the spirit of goodwill of Christmas.

There's a thousand articles detailing all the ways Christmas was stolen from pagan traditions, etc., and I have no desire to beat that horse here. Rather, I'd like to think about what it means to observe traditions.

Yule  - the long dark night, followed by the promise of longer days - is one of my favorite days of the year. Near my house is a park with a lovely little square, marked by standing stones at the cardinal directions and the sunrise and sunsets of the solstices. The markers aren't perfectly aligned, but I appreciate the spirit of the thing. This is the philosophy I carry into much of my spirituality; the spirit in which a thing is intended.

The value of tradition is found in its connection to the past. Generation to generation, we pass on beliefs and behaviors with the intention of keeping our families connected across the span of time. It's a beautiful thing, mostly. It's the reason I still sing Christmas carols, even though I no longer believe in the stories they tell.

In my journey, I'm looking to create new traditions. I've been a haphazard practitioner of my faith up to now, and as we move into a new year, new resolutions, one of mine is to embrace spirituality on a daily basis. This blog is the beginning of that journey.

To be continued!