[Seasons: Summer I]
Spring surprises us every year with its explosion of new life. Summer, it seems, it’s not so surprising, in that it provides abundance from beginning to end. The forests and farms are full of green. Yards and parks and meadows are full of flowers. Hearts are full, gatherings are bigger, and sun is at its annual peak.
We’ve yet to succeed at manufacturing summer. No furnace is warm enough, no artificial grow lamp produces enough UV, and no amount of LED bulbs can illuminate like the summer sun.
But we will keep trying.
Because darkness scares us.
Scarcity motivates us.
And death is our greatest fear.
Summer is the season of perpetual abundance and light, but human nature leads us to believe that in sustaining the warmth and glow of June and July, we may be able to avoid the lows of other seasons.
Summer can’t be reproduced. Nor should it be. The world (and our hearts) cannot continue on in a perpetual summer. The frost and darkness do not "take away" summer as much as they “give" the summer warmth meaning and the summer light its useful strength.
This is true in my garden as much as it is in my inner life.
