Summer Solstice

Ideally I would have liked to say that I did something profoundly spiritual to celebrate my new intense connection that I now have for the Earth for Summer Solstice but I did not. However, I don't think I wasted the longest day of the year.

Alex and I spent a lovely day in Port Angeles and even found out that a local celebrity was having his birthday today--the vampire hero from Twilight (yes, that vampire movie). How did I know this? Well, a cardboard cutout of this teenage heart throb was adorned with a party hat, streamers, balloons and a lovely computer printout that read: "Today's my birthday!" Wow, this is commercialism to the max. It's pretty intense how they've actually managed to integrate a fictional movie into a factual town, and to have done it so seamlessly too! I've even caught a glimpse of where Bella, the lovely heroine of Twilight, and Edward, her vampire love, had their first date.

I do have pictures and I'm dying to put them up (especially since I suffered through the humiliation of taking these pictures: imagine me, pulling my camera out, oh so deftly, looking to the right and then the left, seeing the coast clear, and then pointing and shooting, chuckling slightly to myself, but mainly for show, just in case anyone would walk by and actually think I'm taking this picture because I like Twilight--which I did, but that's beside the point. This is academic, historical fact gathering--I was here to witness society barreling toward the brink of insanity first hand!) but it's very late and dark and I can't find my camera. If only a had a vampire paramour to espy it and retrieve it for me, alas.

Ah, enough of that.

At precisely 10:45 my (pacific) time, the sun stood still. Or something like that. And now the days will shorten everyday, at first imperceptibly and eventually very obviously. Therefore, it is on the shortest night of the year that I offer my brief (it is a very short night, afterall) reflection of the first half of the year:

Appearances are not always what they seem and you cannot expected the unexpected, no matter how hard you try.

These are constant lessons and yet they are always new. I am thankful for this experience on the farm and this chance to rediscover my connection to the land that I walk upon and the seasons that change the landscape each year. I am truly thankful for the abundance of life and love that I have, which is brought to me either directly or indirectly by the sun. This is what ancient agricultural cultures knew down to their bones--the sun is the source of light and life. Today I bask in the prolonged prescence of light, knowing that in the long, cold winter I'll miss it dearly. Such in the ebb and flow of life, which can be seen reflected in all things. I think this teaches me most that balance is foung not necessarily by being in the middle all the time, but by balancing your prescence in the extremes of light and dark.

I might be so bold as to say this adventure, even in its early stages, has forced more growth out of my mind and spirit even as they are still aching from previous growing pains. I am almost weary with learning and processing, which sort of befits the time of year it is. The sun does not only produce profuse growth in plants but in humans too, apparently. Since I am in the midst of it all I don't think I can really sort out what is happening to my direction in life, my ideals, and my perceptions just yet--but it is in tumult and things will have to change drastically and not necessarily because I want it to, but because it has to.

However, no matter how difficult this journey is proving to be, it is worth it all. I am seeing a new part of the world, learning from others, getting dirty, and learning to be a kid again. And isn't knowing how to be a kid again what we all need? We all need to restart our imagination engines and re-believe that anything is possible. Children think they can change the world--why shouldn't adults too?