On Midsummer
Officially it is the day before the Summer Solstice.
Both the longest day and shortest night, marking the meteorological start to the summer. (Though I’m not sure the weather gods are running to the same calendar with chucking high summer at us so early.)
It is the Christmas of floriculture.
A week of midsummer celebrations!
The other side of the year’s clock to midwinter, the shortest day, now the longest, more feasting and glass clinking, instead, being outside as much as possible.
We just had a new moon so there is no milky lunar light, yet after sunset, the night has a magical quality, a liminal space between dusk and dawn, where in midsummer, darkness disappears altogether. In the past, it was believed that there was a veil lifted to the ‘other’ world on the shortest night. Maidens jumped over fires, I’ll light them this week too, but more carefully since even with the rain, plants are like tinder.
It really is time for a break, the sprint of the spring has reached the finish line. Sowing and (most) of the planting out has been done. I can’t lift and move plants around now. I am taking a little pause just as the pendulum of the year holds momentarily before it swings back in the opposite direction.
There are so many opportunities for starts in the horticultural year, there never really is a New Years Day but all things considered, September is that for me and right now is a time for reflection before beginning again.
I’m reviewing plans.
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