Rest.
Lying down or seated in a way that brings your body maximum comfort,
Like a cat heading for a sunny window ledge,
Feel what place and position you want to gravitate towards.
Relax back against whatever you have chosen and let go,
Allowing your body and muscles to fully receive the support beneath you.
Notice how you are feeling in this moment.
Are you relaxed?
Warm enough?
Are there any small adjustments you could make to be more comfortable?
Allow yourself to put everything down that you have been experiencing before now.
Notice if there are any sounds around you that you would enjoy letting your attention rest on.
Feel your body rise and fall with your breath.
Allow time to slow down.
Feel the atmosphere in the room you are in.
The stillness,
The quiet and peace beneath all sounds.
Feel yourself rooted in the ground and below the ground,
The earth.
Midsummer brings us the gifts of pleasure,
Sunshine,
Deep heat that can reach into our bones,
Expansiveness,
Playfulness and freedom.
Even if the sun isn't out where you are,
Let yourself pause to know that it is at the height of its potency.
Let your imagination connect to it and fill your body and heart with its radiance.
Let yourself feel open,
Your ears attuned and your imagination stirred as you listen to this midsummer journey of soul and poetry.
The seasonal wheel turns to the midpoint and zenith of nature's year,
Midsummer.
The longest days,
The shortest nights.
Plenty of daylight,
Plenty of time.
The sun has captured the top of the sky and we crest our days with exuberance.
Hand ourselves over to the juice,
To all the pleasures our senses can delight us with.
We place punnets of hand-picked strawberries on the garden table to warm through.
Pick heads of elderflower blossom to flavour jugs of iced water.
Sunshine and rain,
Rain and sunshine,
Long evenings.
With lives at full stretch,
We follow the unpredictable directions and sudden licks of spontaneity,
Even ferocity,
The element of fire takes us in.
We reach our hands into high summer's wild heather honeypot of delight and let it ooze between our fingers.
Surges of heat,
Surges of pleasure.
Everything good that happens,
Happens between the sun and the earth's warm body.
In the hedgerows,
Wild honeysuckle is entwining itself lasciviously through the dog roses.
Bumblebees are pushing their whole bodies into the folds of petals,
Overlapping petals,
To reach the flower's centres.
Red kites whistle high overhead and swoop down to signal we are going to receive an unexpected message.
Along the unruly roadsides,
Buttercups,
Ox-eyed daisies,
Meadow sweet and grasses at thigh height are following whatever trajectory they feel like to get a share of the light.
Cowled in their verdant smells,
Our eyes are drawn to the hilltops and wide open skies beyond.
A walk up to midsummer's summit,
The hot effort and final climax of achievement,
Gives an endorphin high,
The mountains hot,
Clear and farsightedness.
We pause to look at the vista in front of us and back over how much distance we have managed to cover with the arc of our visions and intentions we made earlier in the year.
As our optimism peaks,
We momentarily pause from the zing and zest to check in with our roots.
We allow our outward energy to be tempered by the phase of the moon.
When a cloud,
Like the shadowy bird of midwinter,
Passes over us,
It brings with it a reminder of the bigger picture,
Of the dark side of the sun,
Countries on fire,
Lands parched,
Millions of people displaced,
Pleasure dependent on what country we belong to,
If any.
We make our way back down our hillside more reflectively,
Choose what actions would draw us up to our full height,
Tick off what we want to do with our remaining daylight hours,
Now even more precious.
Wild swims,
Dancing on the roof,
A road trip as far south as our circumstances will allow us to make,
To emulate the journey of the sun.
Using the magic of midsummer night,
We follow the enchanted song light into the woods,
Search for a blooming forest fern that allows us to understand the speech of animals.
Come back out,
Thrumming with the oak tree's big-hearted blessing.
Build a fire to charge up our potency.
Weave a garland of prayers with wildflowers and herbs for the next generations of earth protectors.
Float it downriver,
Watched over by the sea.
