summer

Lovely Swedish visitors - an internet pagan friend plus husband and small son - have departed and I should be working. Instead I'm thinking about why I don't like summer, even though it's a lovely day, fresh but warm, sunny but not broiling.
It's something to do with my same old process versus result issue: summer seems unsubtle, stagnant, too complete. Already the life and vivid colour has gone from many of the trees. All my best things are effortful. Irony is a struggle, walking is debilitating instead of energising. Lammas/Lughnasadh is not my favourite festival - celebrating a result comes hard for these reasons, though I'll make bread and biscuits and be pretty damn thankful for my personal harvests when the time comes.
Winter is my favourite time - the light, the air, the inward focus, the power of latency - although I also love the transformation of autumn and the potential of spring. Yule and Imbolc are high times, my true celebrations, although the sexuality of Beltane rarely finds me unmoved ... Summer on the other hand, leaves me cold.