I watched a hummingbird yesterday. She whooshed over the fence and began her tasting tour of the garden. She sampled a few lavender hyssop blooms then sipped from the burgundy snapdragons. She zipped for a taste of purple coneflower but quickly backed away from its prickly center. It seemed she didn’t like it. Continuing her tour of the yard’s buffet, she had a bit of salvia here, a fuchsia there, some orange and pink zinnia. But she never again tried a purple coneflower. She paused once, over a coneflower plant, paused for a moment, and then moved on to something more palatable, I suppose. I watched a hummingbird yesterday, watched her garden dance. I watched a hummingbird, and I was enchanted.

I sat on the beach and closed my eyes. I listened, I felt, I breathed. Listened to children squealing, splashing, crying … to parents worrying, scolding, cajoling, joining… to gulls and waves, grating boat motors, laughter, car doors, the occasional surprise of momentary silence….I felt shifting sun-heated mounds of sand beneath my soles, quickly cooled by digging into the depths… felt abrasions of sand pieces – tiny earth bits cascading around my fingers… sun heat tempered by cooled lake breezes caressed my skin into goose bump patterns.. I felt light and dark, sun and shade, and dreamed puffy white clouds floating overhead on their way to the east…I breathed, breathed in sunscreen and snacks, sweat and fish, Kool-Aid and smoke, seaweed and life. I sat on the beach and closed my eyes. Sat on the beach, and I felt peace.

I lay on a blanket in the grass, lay on a blanket, waiting for fireworks to begin, lay on a blanket as day shifted into night. Surrounded by families and troupes of teens, talking, playing cards, pleading for ice cream, waiting for pronto pups, sharing, I lay on a blanket and watched the pre-fireworks color show as blues lightened into golds, gingers, oranges, reds, and purples… as day blues gave way to night darkness and the stars began to appear….one, two, three, burst into my vision. They formed connect-the-dot summer patterns from impossible distances above, wavered into a milky band that traversed the sky,,,,I lay on a blanket in the grass, lay on a blanket and I was bathed in awe.

For it’s summertime, summertime, and the livin’ IS a bit more easy…with sun-warmed winds and swelling life, Earth’s summer self beckons us to slow down, caresses us to awaken, to relish the season’s too-brief visit to earth’s northern curve… We pause to cherish the sweet juicy burst of fresh-picked berries, the crunchy, messy bite of the first butter-drenched ear of sweet corn, the unmistakable, un-reproducible smell and taste of homegrown tomatoes sliced on our table. It’s summer time, and we more easily cast away our long-nurtured defenses. We allow ourselves to recreate childhood wonder – to cultivate spontaneity, to welcome joy.

And so today, as we gather in this cool, warm place may we be open to new possibilities, to new and deeper understandings and connections, to living in the present, in holy Presence. My we embrace those who are hurting, who suffer the erosions of time or the inflictions of illness, who struggle to break free from unhealthy patterns or to heal crippled relationships. May we hold hands with those who work to mend our world through new ways of living, who journey this week to desolate plain reservations of South Dakota, who farm community gardens or prepare summer camps closer to home.

Let use take time to look around us – to look beyond our selves, beyond words and roles, past hurts and future worries, to step through hazy ego veils and enter the place where we are, where we ARE … where we are at peace … where we are one … where we are all and enough at the same time.

It’s summertime, a good time, a growing time, a time for shedding old ways of being, for stripping away old habits of mind, for throwing out cynicisms and skepticisms, for tossing the scales from our eyes. It’s summertime, a new time, an old time, a time to believe again, to imagine new ways of being, to leap past prejudices toward new wisdom, to dream a new world, a new earth, to keep moving on……

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