‘June?’ she whispered…
But her whisper went unheard.
Dear friends, readers, writers of words and all wonderful curious minds who stop long enough to read a few of my own as you pass by… welcome to A coloured Month. The penultimate edition…
Do you hear my sigh? June has been tricky, a mostly unkind, still dressed up as winter month. Summer solstice passed in the chilliest blur of gloomy low clouds followed by too many more carrying Marchy cold rain - which makes four months of March this year…
It has been a mighty task to paint a smile on the face of a person who aches for the gingery warmth of summer for nine months of every year.
But, as I type, a single ray of hope appears as I hear the distant rumble of a harvester ambling, blades turning, across the hill. The land is drying, rain has been absent for five days, heat has spilled from a golden sunshine as if it, too, can finally breathe a sigh of utter relief joining my own.
Summer, whatever surprises it may hold, has made a tentative beginning…
There has been a dearth of enchantment in June photographs this year, the month that is usually so filled with hope as the harbinger of heady, hot, h(l)azy days ahead was evidently lost en route.
“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Heart work…
I search for past summers inside the folds of memories, compensation for those that refuse to form new layers for future need.
Will I remember those I remember today in ten years?
Will I remember that June arrived so belatedly July had crept quietly into the hours without so much as a whisper of warning?
Will I even still be…? A question that is as insistant as it is persistent since my big number birthday at the start of the month.. it hovers in disturbing waves, fear, first always, then quiet acceptance - que sera sera!
I give this thought wide application.
Besieged by overgrowth.
I become obsessed by the immensity of wildness given the right natural goodnesses, namely, simply, although not always welcome, sunshine and rain on repeat! No matter that usually it is contained within the sighing and cursing of the sheer amount I have to clear from the meadow and vegetable garden for each to remain usable spaces. This year inclement weather trips me up almost every day I am blessed with time to do anything about it. My work halted, I spend time, instead, in amazement at the sheer size and abundance of each plant. I am reminded of a book I used to read to my daughter Rosie - too many years ago - called Scarlette Beane;
Her carrots were HUGE as tree trunks
Her onions were as BIG as hot air balloons.
Her parsley was as THICK as a jungle.
I think of this and her and how many times I read the book and the work I now have to do to catch up. Then, almost immediately I am in tears, raging at the unfairness of the passage of both rain and time.
Out of curiosity I wander with a measure - an application loaded on my all singing all dancing phone, what would we do without them - and begin by guessing the height of some of the green giants that are growing close by. The tallest by far is a burdock, triffid like in size, in my tiny stolen patch of woodland, it appears to be twice my height, measures a shocking three metres according to my high tech gadget. Perhaps this is not so accurate but certainly it towers above my head. I make a mental note to cut it down before I clear late summer debris, burdock buttons tangled in fluffy hair are surely one of life’s true nightmares and I have very fluffy hair. And, the stalks are already filled with future hooked annoyances.
Along the lane, just a few steps before the wild boar track that leads onto the lines of ancient vine terraces and a few steps after the vast and dying oak that is home to a pine marten I’ve spied on so often for signs of kits. None ever appear. Just here the milk thistles have grown to such an extraordinary height their tips touch the boughs of trees. If I gaze up their leaf light mingles into the canopies as if they are one whole shimmering sea of leaves. They are easily as tall as the burdock if not a little taller. Beautiful, towering, liver loving. milky stems sway, dipping over the lane and back again…
It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places.
Joseph Conrad
Sheepish sheep…
Regardless of early timidity Sonny and my three new Ouessant sheep have settled quietly into the landscape of this space I call home and are for me, if not every member of the family, the main event this month. I welcome their - slightly nerve wracking - return, their woolly faces and bottoms, their bleating first thing in the morning for a handful of nuts, their presence I the meadow which feels alive again. I spend every free dry hour possible cutting back unimaginable growth so they have shelter from incessant downpours - even the door to the cabin was inaccessible - fill their bed with fresh hay, a completely unnecessary extra, then curse forgive - just - that they immediately ring bark two young peach and a cherry tree, eat all the young bamboo shoots and strip every low branch of fruit they can find including my precious persimmon!
They are loved and as precious.
Harvesting nostalgia..
The crop harvest is late for reasons that take no guessing but finally in the last few days of a month that has held so few that were dry, the rumble of a combine harvester can be heard as it criss-crosses the hill.
As a child harvesting was my favourite time of the year on the farm I grew up on, so much so that as I see the cutters sweeping across the field and the first rows of straw tumble in golden lines from behind I blink back tears unbidden from deep within me. I am enveloped in the scent and the dust, the heat and the stubble, the memory of joy filled moments, a small community working along side each other. I sit for a long while watching the hill, dusty memories of those other harvest days floating in and out of focus, so different from this one.
The hill and it’s edges are revealed once more, it is a relief, not only to the keepers of the land but to me also. For several long weeks I have been unable scared to climb the hill. The barley is taller than I am in many places now, too often I hear the unmistakable grunt of boar as they snuffle out whatever delicacy they have found hidden in the invisible middle. I have no wish to provoke them, this is family time when they will be at their most fiercely protective. I would not survive a confrontation so avoid the risk.
Inevitably the harvest becomes a race against time, storm clouds loom on a burnt orange horizon, disappear in the wind again then reappear, a game they play for two days in a sudden, sultry heat so unexpected everything and everyone melts… tempers are frayed but the barley is cut, wrapped tightly into bales, gathered and protected. another year gathered and stored for fodder, for memories…
The hill is silent, the notes of summer songs drift off in the wind as the storm arrives, with it cooler air, 40mm of rain and March once more… in July,
Ever hopeful and with love
I’ve loved this month…
Everything I’ve read actually! Here on
everyone sparkles with inspiring words and notions and I wish I could mention them all… here are a few favourites. wrote a two part story called Thirst - it explores a POV that is not human. It is read beautifully by Julie herself so don’t be put off by the length - pop on your headphones and listen while you work! Julie writes byHolding wonder, humility, and awe in the same trembling hands as our grief, fear, and anger—with love and compassion.
Her story, the second in a series is as beautiful as the first.
I think it was also Julie who added this post by
to Notes. Stacy writes from her heart and asks what we would do if we changed our screen time to a bigger one, an outdoor one… she suggests we;writes of her and her families findings on a walk in May to her favourite lake…Spend a few minutes to dig into your overworked, mostly too tired brain and ask yourself, “If I were to spend 30 minutes of my screen time to a different screen, the outdoor one, what might I find?”
Then, choose one something (a tree, nearby trail, the moon rise/set) and plan to make it a project of your observation.
Despite that it was mid-May, the lake was still mostly a slurry of frozen surface shimmering in breaks of sun.
The mention of a hare, well… a hare!
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Whether you decide to pay or not I am filled with gratitude by your presence..
Thank you so much for being here.
Well, yes. Thanks. Wonderful.
So many thoughts bubble up glimpsing your thoughts and recollections as you recreate the hill in beautiful prose.
We mammalian humans, lacking tooth and claw, have evolved through the millennia staring into the fearful darkness just beyond the firelight. What monsters lurk in that unknown?
The fear of the unknown, the uncertain, the deathly agent, lessened as we garner knowledge and develop the superpower of prediction. And slowly we have learnt to understand and predict our environment.
And with that came the power to manipulate and alter and change. Which we did with such wild abandon that we’ve moved the environment itself some paces from where it was.
Then, we found ourselves living in a new place and our superpower to predict lost its vision. We can no longer rely on the patterns in which we evolved.
So the rains now come when the world was once dry. The warmth melts the cold. The cold freezes the warmth. Plants pack their bags and move north. Insects and animals follow suit. And once more we find ourselves peering into the dark, fearing the unknown, wondering what monsters lurk in the shadows.
For those of us embedded in nature, embracing the cycles and the predictably, sensitive to the subtleties, we understand these rainy months as more than mere temporary inconveniences. They are trips back in time to the childhood of our species where we were subject to the whims of the world. They bring forth a long forgotten humility and awe. And fear. They remind us of our fragility.
Your writing is so fine that I glimpse that humility and awe and fear emanating through an otherwise rainy day. And I share your obvious love of the small moments that are huge moments. The beauty and the relationships entwined through us all and nature in one great bundle.
Thanks Susie. An excellent walk. 🙏🏼
Another beautiful post, the evocation of time passing and wondering about "in 10 years" brought tears to my eyes. On a more concrete note, we had to turn the heat on to receive clients today and I'm planning a bean soup for dinner...welcome to July!