It's the middle of the day,
The middle of the summer.
The sun is as high as it can possibly be in the sky,
Marking the centre point of all things.
Below the sun,
In front of you,
In a wide open summer meadow.
A fire has been lit to draw the light of the sun down to earth.
In this bright summer sun,
The heat of the fire is almost invisible.
Just a shimmer of heat and smoke in the sky.
The midsummer sun points like a compass to the centre of all things.
As you stand,
Watching the flames leap to meet it,
You find that centre point in the brightness of your own heart space.
In the tender fire that you kept burning all year long,
That sheltered from the wind and the rain.
And that is now strong enough to burn by itself,
Free and open.
And you feel it at the back of your heart.
The place where two little wing buds grew in the spring,
Along with the newborn birds.
And as you sense into the space behind you,
Where wings might grow.
You find that the wings you have grown are strong enough to fly.
Strong enough to take you anywhere you might want to go.
And between these two things,
The fire in your heart and the wings at your back,
You meet a fierce desire in your body to fly.
A fierce desire to be above the earth.
To reach beyond yourself,
To be closer to the sun.
A desire that is a mix of impatience and recklessness and fear and magnificent courage.
A desire that tingles through your whole body.
And wants to take you rushing towards the flames of the fire,
No matter what danger they might hold.
And within the desire,
There is a knowing.
And knowing that the time is now,
That there will be no other time.
A knowing and a certainty that the leap will be worth it.
That the courage is not misplaced.
And so you begin.
You begin to do whatever it takes to launch yourself into the sky.
You find that you have all the strength in your body that you need.
You run and you jump.
You grunt and you sweat with effort.
You reach with all of your heart and all of your mind.
You trust yourself and the earth and the fire in your heart.
And the wings of your imagination.
You begin to do whatever it takes to launch yourself into the sky.
You begin to do whatever it takes to launch yourself into the sky.
And as the heat of the fire comes closer towards you,
You find that your trust was not misplaced.
From one moment to the next,
You are no longer bound by the earth,
But a creature of the sky.
A creature that knows how to ride on the currents of the air.
How to float.
How to rise.
After the rush of elation settles,
There is an immense expansive still point.
An immense peace.
There is simply no further to go.
There is rest here.
Your edges dissolve.
Into the hugeness of the long blue day.
Into the wide open arms of the sun.
Only endless lightness and space.
When the urge comes to bring you back down to earth,
Your feet touch the ground on the other side of the fire.
That did not burn you.
With an infinite lightness.
With a trace of the brightness of this midsummer sun.
To take you into the second half of the year.
However deep into the darkness it takes you.
To take you into the third half of the year.
