June

Cool and hot, not just from one day to the next. Drastic swings in the time it takes to walk inside and eat lunch. No month jumps so merrily from clear blue skies to billowing cumulous towers with such reckless abandon.

Accompanying that temperature roller coaster is the wind; zero to thirty in less than a minute. But just as quickly, the wind can drop off, the sun pops through the clouds and for the briefest moment the world is suspended. Shadows disappear as clouds, like ominous harbingers of catastrophe threaten … what — brutal destruction of the garden or simply an end to the day’s outdoor activities.

These are the thoughts that beset someone sitting on a porch. Those immersed in the woods cannot be bothered with such pondering. Whether hiking, clearing brush or flagging trees for thinning, directly engaging with nature offers a perspective and sense of being far different from bemused observation.

I am an active person. Forest bathing is a concept that I have never been able to wrap my mind around. While there are moments when the beauty of my surroundings make me pull up short. 

Nature, however, does not exist to captivate or seduce me. It exists on its own terms moving at its own rhythms, which I am free to join but am powerless to orchestrate. Mine is at best a minor walk-on role. I can contribute grace notes or momentary dissonance but the symphony plays on around me.

As the month of June opens, does are dropping their fawns. None of us can compete with that for drama. Nothing we can say can take away from the emotion of a newborn fawn making its heart stoping entrance.

The upcoming days will hot and cold, rainy and sun drenched; but always arresting. The world has leafed out, and throughout June it will announce itself with riotous color. June is the month when nature exalts in itself, unapologetically living outs its highest potential before settling into the hard work of summer.