day before yesterday was a twice-watered day. the first in a long time

when the heat and sun dried the garden ground. felt like summer.

which means — it’s time to take to the water.

summer is not an easy season for me. the damp heat, even as light as it is

in the mountains, presents its affront to my constitutionally dry nature. 

the opposite of autumn’s crispy levity, where what is alive for my heart is well

within reach, summer requires my bodymindbeing to parse through the thick air to meet that truth.

in summer,

my ritual, my balance, my memory embodied is water.

wild water.

water that breathes.

water that knows the world inside me is one and the same as the world beyond the container of my skin, the vessel that is my body.

water that changes.

i have learned how to move inside this season 

slow.

following the flow of my breath

matching my movement with its rhythm

practicing patience

“A drop of water, if it could write out its own history,
would explain the universe to us.” 

- Lucy Larcom, The Unseen Friend

for me, this is what opens up room to tend my own fire, nourish my passions with time and attention. to stoke the flames of my convictions. to reach lit tendrils of compassion and love into the world to dance with other fires.

this light is at the heart of it all. and i don’t want to miss it.

so when it overwhelms, i take my lessons with water, let them permeate, rest awhile. 

and come to the fire refreshed and alive.