How does one capture a season?
Is it in the amount produced in the garden or kitchen?
The foods eaten or what the harvest brings?
The way of the sky and the feel of the air?
Is it in the flowers that are blossoming?
Or the way the sun feels on our skin?
Is it through the activities we do? The picnics, the bonfires, the parks we visit?
The sounds carried through space? The birds, the children, the crickets chirping?
How do we make sure to really feel this summer season?
Recently, there are some evenings where I can feel the season slipping away while on my walks — the light is cast differently, the air smells crisper. There have been many moments of pure life this summer and yet I’m left wondering if I’ve been present enough, if I’ve really felt it all.
The seasons come and go so quickly; I want to feel them penetrate my being, to know them fully as a creature with a limited amount of time on this Earth. I want to embrace each moment of life, to look at it squarely and to know I am really alive. This experience is real and has been felt fully. I am really here.
And so it took a few quiet moments sitting by the nearby stream for me to remember again how easy it is to get lost in the mode of “doing”. And certainly, doing can be great fun. It feels wonderful to harvest and preserve. It brings a sense of productiveness and accomplishment that few other tasks can bring. And certainly, it is part of summer.
But sitting in this place by the stream, I began to really breathe again. Deeply. That summer feeling of expanding time and nothing pressing to do came over me fully. There was nowhere to be but with the birds and the sound of rushing water.
A man passed and looked at me as though my sitting stream side was the most peculiar thing he had seen all day. He asked with curiosity, “Are you just watching the water?”
Well, yes, actually, I am.
I am being.
I am alive.
And in a few moments more, as I remained silent and still, I remembered that this is how I find God — usually in solitude, always in the midst of nature. At this moment, I was also able to find the spirit of summer.
How do you make sure to embrace this season?
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