The Summer Solstice and Sensual Body
“Bees of small strength carry the flower harvest with their feet; the cattle bring to the mountain a rich-pouring abundance.” ~ Irish ninth century
The summer solstice season has arrived where I live in the Northern Hemisphere.
Roses are blooming with enthusiasm. I spotted my first St. John’s Wort yesterday, with their star-like yellow flowers and green, leafy stems shooting out of a dusty, rocky road.
This morning, I opened my window to the birds singing their sweet songs. Without any effort it calmed me, softening my groggy mood.
I walked outside to see the white peonies sprinkled around my garden. I buried my face in their enormous flowers.
I couldn’t breathe them in enough! I wanted to cling to them. I want to greet these roses every morning for the rest of the year.
But the roses will not stay. Neither will the Iris’s that bloom with such brilliance for the shortest amount of time.
Nature teaches us that grasping onto the petals of flowers won’t change how they wilt and become compost. They teach us to enjoy the scents of them now and then let it go. Because life is change.
The light of the season draws me outside. My writing and teaching practice feels like an inside job. It’s the perfect way to spend the snowy, cold winter days. Where I live, on Lil’wat Nation lands in British Columbia, Canada, the sun buries its head into the mountains at 1:00pm at the height of winter. When I’m not desperately driving around our wee town, trying to find the last rays of sunlight at 12:30pm, the darkness makes my writing and online teaching work easier to settle into. Much easier then when so much generous light, sounds and smells pours through my window.
My sensual body pulls me outside!
Lately, I’ve been a bit slow to write. There are moments when writing about bodies is exhausting for me, because I live in a body.
(I decided to put a period at the end of that sentence.)
There are moments when writing about bodies is exhausting for me, because I live in a body that does weird stuff.
This chronic “weird stuff” stops me from having any sort of regular work schedule. It stops me from making any sort of plans and sticking to them. It forces me into spending the night being unable to sleep while my brain stays up to track strange symptoms.
I am writing another embryology story. Slowly. Sometimes, I need a break from writing and musing over bodies.
Perhaps this is the time to enjoy the sensualness of the season and for today, let this be my body writing practice.
With the tremendous offerings of the summer solstice season, can we accept the invitation of living a sensual life? How does the season cast sensual spells on your beautiful body?
What can you sense through your skin and eyes or through your nose and fingertips that brings you alive?
If you are able to, feel how your hands engage with life around you. Stroke your own fingertips. We can express what’s in our heart through our hands.
How do you wish to engage with the world around you this season?
May we slow down and admire the petals on the flowers that visit us with importance. May we give equal moments of awe and appreciation to how we exist here in these bodies on this earth, only for a whisper of time.
Happy summer solstice,
Kelly xo
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