06/21/2025
🌞 Happy Summer Solstice!
"Solstices and equinoxes mark the four movements in a celestial score. The older I get, the more I aspire to tap into the symphonic song of nature. To harmonize with the flow of seasons, the cycles in our landscapes, and the larger universe. This year, on June 20, Summer Solstice arrives in the Northern Hemisphere. Summer Solstice marks the time of the longest day and the beginning of summer. Where I live, it ushers in prime growing weather and a magnificent rush of flowers and produce to enjoy and share. In centuries past, Midsummer’s Eve was seen as one of the times that the fairies were supposed to come out and dance. Today a fairy house movement plays off this theme, inviting children lost in the pretend world of blue screens to take a closer look at nature and play for free in an outdoor world of imagination. For families it’s a time of garden salads, strawberry shortcake, picnics, and summer vacation.
Gardeners and farmers are perhaps tied to these cycles as much as any of us can be, living in the modern world. And as a gardener still crafting a life and livelihood from the land, I am touched and heartened by our human impulse to mark the seasons together with earthly and celestial rites and rituals that help us celebrate our circles around the Sun.
🌞*(from an essay on seasonality in my book "The Heirloom Gardener - Traditional Plants and Skills for the Modern World) 'Midsummer Eve' by artist Edward Robert Hughes (one of my favorite artworks)
