Lazy, hazy days of summer

I got together with my hippie chick friends last week to celebrate the solstice, and we each tried to bring food that had ingredients that came from our growing gardens—lettuce, kale and herbs were a few.  We ate, we hooped, then we read some summer poems and had a campfire.  The wind blew (but it didn’t rain!) and we lingered outside till the darkness at the edges crept over us.

June is my favorite month—the month when school is out, when “fireflies turn on their electric wills,” when plans are made and carried out for living life to the max.  June may also have once been my favorite month because my birthday happens to fall within it, though I’m not quite as thrilled at being yet another year older anymore.

I started thinking about what I’m loving in my life right now and what’s making the summer of 2011 special:

Hooping. If you see a crazy bunch of people at Forest Park on a Saturday between 4:30 and 6:30 pm doing crazy things with hoops, welcome to hooping.  We love to share the love of hooping, which is why we bring extra hoops. It’s for adults and kids alike, and I think of it as my playtime.

Bancroft Moscado at Mr. G’s (tell Bryan I sent you. He’ll know). I tried this wine recently for the first time and now it’s my ‘go-to’ wine for bookclubs and get-togethers. It’s light and fruity, perfectly refreshing on these summer nights.  And it’s only 5.99 per bottle, perfect!

My native Indiana coneflowers and Shasta daisies, which require no special care and are just starting to bloom. 

My strawberry patch and heirloom tomato garden.  We harvested strawberries from our little patch earlier this month, and my tomatoes are taking off.  Looking forward to a toasted tomato sandwich—coming up soon.

Happy Summer to you.

*Firefly quote from a poem by Stacy Cassarino

Just Delicate Needles

Just Delicate Needles


It's so delicate, the light.
And there's so little of it. The dark
is huge.
Just delicate needles, the light,
in an endless night.
And it has such a long way to go
through such desolate space.
So let's be gentle with it.
Cherish it.
So it will come again in the morning.
We hope.

--by Rolf Jacobsen
Translated by Robert Hedin

Winter officially begins today, which means that we’re celebrating Winter Solstice around this house. Winter Solstice is one of my favorite Earth and seasonal celebrations because of the very reason it exists—it’s so connected to the Earth, the seasons, and the sun.

The history of Winter Solstice celebrations is pretty interesting, dating back thousands of years before people understood the cycles of the Earth. Our far back ancestors feared that the Sun would not return and they would be left in darkness, so they held elaborate ceremonies to coax the Sun back. Solstice, which literally translates to ‘Sun stops moving,’ usually occurs on December 21, but sometimes occurs a day on either side.

This is the shortest day of the year, with only a little over nine hours of daylight for us here, and we celebrate the return of the light as the days gradually stretch out longer now.

If you want to welcome the return of the light too, here are a few ideas for ways to make Solstice special: welcome the rising sun, take a walk outside and enjoy the winter world, eat by candlelight and use as few artificial lights as possible, listen to Wyndham Hill music (I like the Celtic Christmas collection), gather food to donate to a food pantry, string bagels dipped in peanut butter and birdseed on a tree for the birds. We plan to have a bonfire in the backyard and drink hot chocolate, and tonight is even a full moon!

There are a few books on the Winter Solstice at the library that are excellent: The Shortest Day by Wendy Pfeffer, The Longest Night by Marion Dane Bauer (both kids books), and The Winter Solstice by John Matthews, which is an excellent history of worldwide Solstice and Christmas traditions. Happy Solstice and Merry Christmas!