Late Spring Late Day

Most of us consider the start of the Summer to be Memorial day – the stars say Summer begins this year June 21, 2015 at 12:38 p.m. EDT.

In England, June 24, is considered Midsummer Day; the next week or so is known to be a particularly good time to experience first hand the magic of the season; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” of one’s own.

These types of dreams are more common here on The Hill then most other places. All you have to do is set aside some quiet time to observe nature: watch a flower grow, water flow, the sun set, the moon rise, clouds form and resolve, or the stars spin around Polaris.

Cherish the feeling that will arise in your chest, the sensation that we are indeed a part of, not separate from, everything around us.

Years ago at twilight on a hot, thick aired, syrupy evening near the summer solstice,  I sat quietly and watched through hooded eyes, the forest some ways away.

From the border described by the meeting of the meadow and the woods, vague in the dusk, I heard a sound like a drop of water splashing into a shallow pool.

“Puck…, Puck…, Puck…”

It was just the sort of evening that provokes woodland nymphs and fairies to abound.

I then remembered the name of the mischievous sprite
in Shakespeare’s play “A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream” –
“Puck” aka “Robin Goodfellow”.

At the end of the play Puck suggests to us that our experiences during this admittedly magical time of year may indeed be all in our mind:

“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,”