Here in Canada, this is Victoria Day.
This is a very distinctive Canadian holiday, I believe maybe only here, celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday.
Now, she hasn’t been around for over a century, but it’s one of those old-time Canadian holidays.
And one of the things about this holiday is, for Canada, it’s traditionally the beginning of the summer season, whatever that means.
Now, wherever you are in the world, there’s going to be some different pattern of seasons.
Some places, maybe, if you’re on the equator you get no seasons at all, and you know, or maybe if you’re in the tropics you get rainy season, dry season, and if you’re further away from the tropics, like up here, then you get the real summer and winter, hot and cold seasons.
And the further you get towards the poles, the more extreme the season gets.
So eventually, if you know, if you’re like way in the Arctic or Antarctic, you actually can have like some time in the summer where the sun never sets, and sometime in the winter where the sun never rises, so that you can really feel the extremes of the seasons.
But wherever you are, there’s something that is really great about just observing the seasons, just following them, just being aware of them.
It really gives so much more variety to the year.
And this feeling of change and renewal, every time it goes to a new season, there’s a change in the whole attitude, the whole feeling of being in that place.
It’s almost like travelling to a new place every time there’s a change of seasons.
And in a way, it also brings back- there’s also a feeling of coming back, because it’s going around in this circle.
So every time I come to the next season, I kind of think back to how things were the last time, the last year, the last time we were in this season, and also all the times that have passed where that season was there.
It’s like it triggers the memories of all the times in my life, all the previous times of that season.
So right now, we are deep into the spring now, we’ve had the flowers on the trees, birds are singing, nesting, and finally here in my little corner of the world, there is at last what we might call summer weather, where we can actually go outside without putting a coat on, and in many cases cursing about the cold.
It’s now summertime.
So what is it about the summer? You know summer is in many ways the easiest season.
I mean, it’s easy a season to like.
If you think of how many people, if their favourite season- there must be at least half the people in the world would pick summer as their favourite season.
At least anybody who comes from a place that has a cold winter.
And it’s a time connected with easy pleasures.
You know, summertime and the living is easy, as the song goes.
And there’s kind of a sense of innocent playfulness to it.
And I think a big part of it is just the fact that we can be outside more.
In the winter there’s more of this feeling of being cozy, being inside going into these sort of bubbles of warm protection.
And so the fall and winter is going into that kind of like nesting mode, going into the cave, almost, like a hibernation.
And then the summer is like coming out.
The summer is the time to step out of the bubble of protection and go out into the world.
Now, of course, with this particular year there’s a big damper on that whole usual routine, that we’re all being instructed to remain in bubbles as much as possible.
But even though it’s not full on, you know, beaches and, you know, big gatherings and the usual way we might imagine the summer, it’s still a time to get outside more.
And I think overall in terms of how we’re living life, to me it seems like this time of year is the time to go out, to have adventure, to begin the expedition, to be doing something new.
It’s like the winter feeling is coming home, and the summer feeling is going out into the world.
What will it mean? It could be simply just going for a walk in the sunshine.
It could be travelling, although that’s a different situation this year.
It could be starting some kind of a project.
I feel like this is the time when- now is the time to build.
Now is the time to plant the seeds of something new, to really be working on a new project, a new direction.
And just seeing the sun shining reminds me of that.
So how are you looking to use this summer, if it is in fact summer for you? What does summer mean to you?
#summertime #summer #seasons