Summer Emergence by Molly Remer

Sometimes I wonder what I do in a year. Then I remember that I watch nighthawks migrate and coneflowers go to seed. I find Monarch caterpillars small and brave on persistent milkweed. I travel over miles of stone and moss, sometimes on my knees, seeking mushrooms and cackling with glee. I kneel in the violets, purple and white and yellow, and inhale great breaths of wild plum. I keep dates with as many sunsets as I can. I walk and walk and walk, carry leaves of mullein, crow feathers, bits of chicory, coreopsis, evening primrose, and wild rose home to press into the pages of my prayers. I pick blackberries with the bees and feel butterfly tongues on the skin of my wrist. I reach for wild raspberries under both thunder and sun. I slide down hillsides with muddy feet and antlers in my hands. I make eye contact with hummingbirds and turtles and deer and raccoons. I watch both fawns and nestlings grow. I learn how woodpeckers talk to their babies and the purring sound crows make at the compost pile when they think they’re unobserved. I lose and recollect myself more times than I can count, hold myself steady and let myself dissolve. I create new things with a wild veracity of devotion that sometimes threatens to consume me. And, I learn over and over again every day, how much it matters to bear witness, to what means to sit with myself in the temple of the ordinary each day, calling my attention back, recommitting to being here for it all, settling back into center again and again, rebuilding and renewing, witnessing and weaving, losing and finding, laughing and crying, refusing to surrender my joy and trusting that somehow it matters to be here, to see everything I can.

In times of global instability and uncertainty, crisis and despair, seasonal acceleration, climate change, and cultural distraction and discord, it becomes more important than ever to root ourselves in the lessons of our own landscapes, the rhythms and cycles, wisdom and power, of a turning earth and changing year.

It is summer (at least in the Midwestern US where I live). We are here. We honor and celebrate what is thriving, what is abundant and flourishing. We honor and release that which has withered,we breathe it out and let it go. We pause in the brightness and buzzing to remember our promises, the bold dreams and broad visions that began to incubate at Imbolc, that we have tended and carried so carefully through darkness and into the sun. We feel heat soak into our skin and strength seep into our feet. We exhale with gratitude into our own wholeness, our own muchness and fullness now in such joyous bloom. 

What is your body saying to you right now?
What does your body say to you at this time every year?
What is the land saying to you?
What is flourishing around you?
What is withering and falling away?

For me, the sun is radiant through a thick canopy of green, the breeze still sometimes cool across our faces, the exuberant song of cicadas and bullfrogs, goldfinches and bluebirds, casting a web of sound across the day. There are hummingbirds at the feeders, nighthawks on the wind, butterflies on the roses, and cool green globes of gooseberries by the roadsides. The elephant ears are unfurling and pink lilies are in bloom. Everything feels whole and hearty and alive with its own loveliness. We are called to admire the blooming, the bounteousness and ripeness, all this unfurled potential in full and languorous display. We are called to soften into summer, warm skin and sweetness, languid and open to the caress of life’s abundant desire and devoted passion as it curls around our shoulders and fills our hearts and ears. Now is when we bring ourselves out into the shining, when we dare to lift our bright and willing petals up to the sun, soaking up the replenishment and inspiration we have so sought and craved.

Now is a time of summer’s emerging, a time of flourishing and ripening, a time of reaching and expanding, a time in which we stand at twilight watching fireflies dot the fields with sparks of light, while the lilting call of a chuck-will’s-widow rises through the grass. It is now that the wild pink roses are in bloom and the scent of wild grape vine flowers follows us down the road smelling like watermelon. It is now that we are mindful of snakes on the stones and ticks in the grass and mosquitoes in the night. It is now that we seek wild raspberries, pause to admire milkweed in bloom, and lean in to what we yearn for. It is now that I gather with my friends at the riverside to circle and sing. It is now that we sink into the cold, clear waters of the river, letting ourselves be fully immersed in a baptism of renewal, rising shrieking from the current, our skin tingling with the energy of emergence. 

Once,
twice,
three times 
we immerse 

calling on maiden, mother, crone as we rise up reborn, water rolling from our arms, sunshine on our skin, here to tell what we know and claim what we seek, and live with our own power and magic dripping cold and refreshing from our holy human forms.

May we strive for peace.
May we strive for understanding.
May we strive for excellence.
May we strive for justice.
May we also sit in the company of joy
and step into the pulse of presence.
May we lay aside our striving,
join the dance of life,
and bear witness to what is now.