The Spirituality of Summer

Neighbor's Flower Garden

We often equate summer with vacations, strawberry shortcake, barbecues, short sleeve weather, or resting in the shade, perhaps in a hammock. When I was a child the annual church picnic and fund raiser (held near the July 4th Holiday) was the highlight of our summers. We were free for a day from the toils of harvesting crops. 

Commerce and religion overlapped as the Catholic priest or a parishioner called out Bingo numbers to those crowded on seating along the four sides of  a building on church property. An array of prizes, some very expensive, were displayed in the center of the building, easily in the view of hopeful Bingo players. This illegal ritual continued until the county sheriff's raid that resulted in a fine.

During the picnic, I strolled the grounds looking for a game that I hoped would end in winning one of those painted  plaster of paris horses, adorned with silver glitter. My sister-in-law Corine has one on her living room shelf. I never won a horse and didn't play the game for any length of time. I wanted to make sure I had enough money to buy ice cream, a rare treat in our family. 

    

As I aged I increasingly recognized the spiritual aspects of summer, as I did a few weeks ago watching this agile butterfly feeding on a brilliantly white flower. I was on one of my daily walks, passing by a neighbor's carefully tended front yard. 

According to the Oxford dictionary spirituality is the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. My musings then are about how summer can be a time when experiences (may they be momentary) stimulate an individual's personal search for meaning, purpose, and connection to something greater than themselves.  

Here's Mary Oliver's poem This Summer Day with its message about the potential spiritual effects of summer.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do 

With your one wild and precious life?

I admit watching the butterfly/flower did not raise in my consciousness about the deep question of what I am planning to do with the rest of my life. Instead I marveled at the beauty that was in front of me. Noticing beauty is a form of spirituality as suggested in David Whyte  book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. The book, a birthday gift from my friend Linda, has short elegant essays on 265 words starting with Alone and ending with Withdrawal. Here's his opening paragraph from the two page essay on beauty. 

Beauty is the harvest of presence, the evanescent moment of seeing or hearing on the outside what already lives far inside us; the eyes, the ears or the imagination suddenly becomes a bridge between the here and the there, between then and now, between the inside and the outside; beauty is the conversation between what we think is happening outside in the world and what is just about to occur far inside of us. 

Margaret Renkl in her elegant  book  The Comfort of Crows, with stunning illustrations by her brother Billy, chronicles her observations and insights about the passing seasons, witnessed from her backyard, her neighborhood, and from the Nashville area. Her book, as one reviewer noted, is fuel to restore spirits in dealing with ecological grief.  She refers to summer as The Season of Singing and says this in the opening paragraph about the season:

Everywhere, from sunup to sunup, the world is full of song. The days are hot, hot, and all the hot long day I listen to the bees lifting from flower to flower, to the watchful chipmunk sounding its chock chock alarm while the red-tailed hawk wheels, crying, high in the sky. I can't see the songbirds in the dappled light of a thousand leafy branches, but I can hear them calling from the trees. 

Renkl, during her observations of week four of summer, laments the pain of watching plain working-class homes in her neighborhood being destroyed  to make room for fine, fancy houses. Especially painful for her is watching the shade trees and wildflowers being mowed down, too, with no more thought than a lawnmower gives the grass. So much life cut off for no reason but commerce. 

Renkl's book is a poignant case study of nature's spirituality, including grieving the loss of disappearing elements .  A fellow Unitarian, Kimberly, leads a Nature-Based Spiritual Practice Group at our church, First Unitarian Society. The group does pragmatic exercises to promote wholeness, wellness, and harmony through spiritual practices grounded in the Wheel of the Year and changing seasons.

Kimberly also is a member of  group that I belong to that meets weekly. We do a series of Qigong movements referred to as the crane.  During the summer we meet in Wingra Park on the shores of Lake Wingra, just across the street from our apartment. All summer long we watched a chick crane (referred to as a colt) mature. The elegant picture, taken by my neighbor Susan, shows that the colt was almost a full grown adult.  During one of our recent sessions, the family flew over us, so low we could hear the swoosh of the powerful wings. We witnessed beauty, grace, and elegance.  Comments made after our session indicated that we shared a few moments of joy as the cranes flew overhead 

Here's the crane family with the youngster in the middle, now fully grown. About two weeks ago, I stepped out of the backdoor of our apartment building and to my surprise saw the family across the street. I worried if they could safely cross busy Monroe Street to Wingra Park where they usually hang out. I thought if they were ready to cross at the intersection I would push the button that stops traffic and escort them across the street.

The family leisurely strolled towards the intersection while I waited at the light. The family made a sharp turn at the corner and headed west along Monroe Street. I wished them well and crossed the street heading to the lake. A few days later, a neighbor reported seeing them in the park; all is well. 

We have at least another two months to be inspired by our neighborhood cranes. According to a Google search, cranes leave Wisconsin in the late fall and early winter, typically leaving around mid-to-late November or December. They gather in staging areas like Horicon Marsh, near Horicon or Crex Meadows, another wildlife refuge in Burnett County. Their departure south is triggered by cold weather, snow, or freezing temperatures. 

Another example of how summer inspires spiritual-like reflections invite is this poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's. 

Case Study In Insanity

Every year, the zinnias have died,
or else have come so close to dying
I’ve dug out their bare, stunted stems
and frost-browned leaves and planted
trusty petunias. But this year. This year
an enchantment of zinnias. A profusion
of red. Magenta. Yellow. Orange. White.
An astonishment of beauty. A bright
constellation of earthbound joy.
You have heard this, too: insanity
is doing the same thing again expecting
different results. So let me be insane.
For this is the year when again
I bought zinnia starts and hoped
for abundance and was stunned
by flamboyant abundance. It’s making
me wonder what else I might sow
until I no longer have energy to plant:
Kindness. Forgiveness. Trust. Love.
Just because they haven’t always flourished
before, well, look at all these zinnias
outside my door, brilliant and burgeoning,
dozens and dozens, and sure, they will die
come winter, but for now, more flowers arrive
every day. Brilliant. Just look at all those petals.

Tending Prospect Gardens provides me with needed refuge while reminding me that the human qualities mentioned in Rosemerry's poem (kindness, forgiveness, trust, and love) are possible and are present. I would add generosity and joy to her list. We may need to be more mindful of these human qualities when they are present, especially during these politically stressful times coupled with polarization. Also helpful is intentionally practicing these human qualities as suggested by Rosemerry's poem: It’s making me wonder what else I might sow until I no longer have energy to plant: Kindness. Forgiveness. Trust. Love. 

The Gardens continue to thrive as Autumn approaches. Once again, on July 24th Operation Fresh Start (OFS) crews helped me weed the Gardens. Here's the crew: Nyia  front seated on the railing; Will on the second step; Michael and Maliyah (leaning on the shovel) on the fourth step; Tony and Taylor, one of the supervisors, on the fifth step; Jay seated on the left railing; Isaiah behind him; Chris standing in the middle and Ian, the other supervisor, on the right railing. Thank you all.

Another joyful morning, interacting and working with these young adults, as they pursue their dreams. They worked hard and cleared many areas of weeds. Here's Isaiah laden with bindweed. 

Maliyah, Michael and Isaiah pausing in their labors.

During the evening of July 23rd  Ann and I attended OFS' open house celebrating the renovation of the former OFS headquarters, now the renovated Atwood Music Hall. OFS crews in the building trades program helped renovate the former offices, which are now on Milwaukee Street. 

We met several OFS graduates and learned  about plans for new programs in health related careers and in child care. The future is promising for this valuable non-profit.  Dedicated staff and board members support young adults (ages 16-24) on their journeys toward self-sufficiency through education, mentoring, and employment training. Ann and I are happy to support OFS.

On  mild August 23rd I enjoyed another work session. Joining me were Joyce, Peggy, and three West High School students: Kat, Madeline and Natalie. Kat is the Leo Club  President. The picture captures Peggy and the students making the heart sign.  

We worked for two hours, wedding on the Regent and Fox sides of the Gardens. Thank you all.

During the break a cicada landed on Madeline's hand and stayed for some time. As you can see from the picture Madeline enjoyed the encounter and I am assuming so did the cicada. All the humans certainly enjoyed the rapport between Madeline and the cicada.  

Kat, Madeline, and Natalie are seniors this year. I wish them well as they too journey forward towards self sufficiency. I certainly will welcome their return to Prospect Gardens. Their youthful energy adds so much to my joy of the work session.

Here's Kat weeding hostas along the border of Hanna's and her partner's home. She, along with Madeline and Natalie, worked hard and efficiently. 






 Here's four pictures of the Gardens as we transition into Autumn. Each has a quotation about summer's impact on the writer.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

[T]hat old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.” 

Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

The spiritual meaning of sunshine goes beyond its physical warmth and brightness. It symbolizes illumination, positivity, growth, and Universal presence. Just as the sun shines on everyone without discrimination, our inner light is made available to all of us.

Oprah Winfrey

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."

John Lubbock

We are now into September with summer fading into the past. I anticipate more blue skies like the one in the picture while the green leaves change colors and rejoin Mother Earth as compost. 

As I welcome Autumn the memory of enjoying this bouquet of summer flowers lingers in my mind. As readers of this blog know, I walk daily. Sometimes I walk the trails in the section of the UW Arboretum along Monroe Street starting at the Wingra Boat House, which is across the street from our apartment. During late July's hot spell as I approached Wingra Springs which feeds a pond just off of Monroe Street, to my surprise, I saw this bouquet left on the ledge overlooking the pond. I continued my walk with a feeling of gratitude for the beauty of summer, my good fortune of  being alive, and gratitude for the generosity of a fellow neighbor. 

I end these musings with Mary Oliver's poem Praying. I consider her the Patron Saint of Nature. 

  Praying 

It doesn’t have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

stones; just pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try

to make them elaborate, this isn’t

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.