Full Moons, Dirty Feet, Blunt Hammers

August is the most delicious month. I can taste it, despite the activity of gremlins in my genes and the giant tangles of disillusionment and uncertainty that have settled in my bones.

August is perfection, abundance, glorious maturity. I have no words for the magic of the canopy of leaves over the path I walk; all I know is that I see the miraculous more easily at this time of year than at any other. The rest—the early morning rush of trying to untangle yesterday’s problems, the late night flow of sorrow over the day’s events—it’s all there, but August, with its strong and hopeful song, has a way of expanding the moment to make room for all of it, with little effort on my part.

Dead centre in the glory of summer, hitting me like a large blunt hammer, I see in my friend
the crippling effects of her multiple sclerosis, and in another (and in the mirror) the fatigue
and fear that laces cancer treatment and oncology visits and statistics that scream defeat and recurrence. In my body, I feel the effects of confused and bruised mitochondria, hungry cells. But for now, there is August. August with its overgrown gardens and fresh greens in abundance. With its built-in gratitude. With its books. (The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton, for those of you with a hungry, science-minded streak, curious about why all your efforts of positive thinking and movement toward your goals still haven’t built a solid grate over the deep hole you sometimes fall into.) August with its muddy, sweaty feet, with its outdoor music powerful enough to get thousands of us dancing barefoot under the full moon on our river valley hill.

A Full Moon, Terra Firma, and a Full Life

We’ve had a full moon in the air this week, ripe with possibility, the unexpected and new, the birth of things that have been incubating for some time. The stale heavy air has been blown dry with fresh breezes, a bright sun and a bright moon. Days are still warm; nights have become cooler. I notice these things—the sun and the moon and the earth—because they ground me.

My psyche too has been incubating a few things, and, by way of the periodic dialysis I go for with the intuitive, kind, solid-as-a-rock and generous-beyond-words woman I turn to for this purpose, I think I may now once again be clear enough to turn from languid mid-summer days to welcome the changes in the air.

Earlier this summer, savouring the season’s sweetness—once over the most delectable backyard barbequed steak on a Cobb salad followed by the best homemade apple pie, and more recently with other friends over an equally delectable cedar plank salmon and paella followed by fresh U-pick raspberries on cheesecake—I’d sensed the first hints of fall. Not in the air yet on those evenings, but perhaps rather in the faces of our friends.

Change is usually bittersweet, but with the bitter aspect comes crisp, and bright, and a new kind of sweetness.  Yesterday, I saw so clearly days from 20 and 30 years ago, the days I first greeted the unspeakably sweet faces of my babies, the sunny magical days of promise, days overflowing with love, literally. These were days when my children’s kisses and laughter and fears and tears filled my days with purpose and joy, days when our little family was on the cusp of so much.

Today I see clearly again how deeply the earth sustains us through so many seasons and storms. She watches, listens, breathes, shelters. She is susceptible to erosion by wind and water and fire, but she absorbs, regenerates, heals, nourishes. She is solid, and provides beds of soil for growth, and beds for hydrating, cleansing streams of water. She is loyal and patient and forgiving. She whispers the truth: we are all made of star stuff, we are all connected—connected to her, to the universe, to each other, those who have come before us, and those will follow us.

What has been incubating for me in recent weeks is this message for my offspring: live fully, now, in the summer of your lives. Remember that the ordinary—everything from stepping out onto wet grass in bare feet to scrubbing the mineral deposits from your shower—can be grounding and nourishing, and remember that being well-nourished is what protects us from the ennui that can come along to haunt us at times.

So work hard, but take time to play too, and to rest, and to cry when it is the only thing to do, and take time to breathe and give your deepest self a hug. Remember that it is in inhaling and exhaling deeply that we are renewed, that this is how we slow down enough to take in all of reality, both bitter and sweet, which is what we need to do in order to digest it and allow it to dissipate, and keep it from weighing us down too much, and yes, nourish us and foster growth.

Remember these things, because along with the intellect and talent and energy and humour you have inherited from your parents and grandparents, you have also inherited their burdens, though it is your job to shed these, not bear them. It is your job to fly high, higher than we have, and leave something better than you were given. It is your job to chase your bliss, and to someday pass on to your own children their own bliss. So grab the ticket that is your birthright and go, chase your dreams with all your might. Don’t look back our way. We have all we need to find our own way through our own continually emptying and refilling seasons; you have all you need to find yours.