Interweavings

August for our Book of Seasons

 

We are deep into the heart of summer if you are in the Northern Hemisphere.  August is full, ripe, and ready to harvest!  One of the things I love most about Mother Nature is that you can always count on her to be surprising.  The weather has been a constant conversation and if you grow anything edible the rain or heat or lack of has left its mark.  But now is time to gather and enjoy all of the fullness this season brings.

 

Affirmation for the month –

 

I breathe deep the abundance of life.

 

 

Each year I re-read Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh during the summer months.  Each small chapter centers on a shell found along a quiet beach and the secrets it reveals.  The channeled whelk which is deserted of its tiny inhabitant, the moon shell with it’s perfect spiral pointing to center, and the double sunrise with it’s perfectly matched halves are a few she writes about in the book.  She examines her marriage and the role of mother with the insight of these gifts from the sea.  Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the wife of Charles Lindbergh of aviation fame.  She was a mother and writer and knew to search for lessons found in nature.  I am reminded to look around for the gifts awaiting my attention.  I do not live near the sea, but I have shells that come out and visit during the summer months.

 

Symbols of the sea are beautiful talismans for our seasonal walk.  A shell or two sitting on an altar, a small shell hung on a necklace, or a framed picture hanging on a wall draws us into the sounds and rhythm of the sea.  The movement of ebb and flow that is echoed in our daily lives whispers that nothing is permanent.  All negative as well as wonderful events, things and people move into and out of our lives and it is natural and it is fine.

 

This month breathe deep the abundance of life as it teams around you.  Place a seashell to your ear and be transported!  Eat the harvest of the summer months.  Find the wisdom of Mother Nature as she expresses around you.