The dog days of summer. Many of us are in the thick of it right now, sultry days like molasses. In some places, extreme weather has produced the sense that we’re at a complete standstill in the season, with sustained bouts of heat, humidity, and rain making each day feel very much like the one before.
But while it may seem that we’re all standing in place at the hottest point of the year, if we take a closer look, perhaps we’ll notice that summer has begun to change all around us.
Each region has its own cycle of life and movement throughout the year, the seasons eternally shifting as the Earth traces its familiar path around the sun. This orbit guarantees that no day anywhere on the planet will ever be the same as the one before.
In Homer at this time of year, the tipping point from one season to the next comes early, with a change of colors unique to these coordinates. A streak of sunny weeks suddenly breaks by mid-August, when the rains come. After that, the panoramic views that we cherish on hikes in the forest or tram rides are enshrouded in clouds and mist. Yet, there’s color all around us as fireweed bursts into full bloom from seashore to mountaintop, summer’s triumphant blaze.
There’s lots of movement around us, too. The sockeye runs begin to taper off, making way for coho. Migratory birds begin to make their way south, as do some species of whales. We, as humans, start thinking about all there is to do in the coming weeks, whether it’s tending to the harvests in our backyard gardens or in the waterways around us.
Being attuned to the rhythms of nature isn’t the easiest thing to do. Many of those rhythms are obscured by the things we as humans have built up around us, the things that protect us from the vicissitudes of change. But to live in concert with nature, we must keep our eyes open to what our surroundings have to offer: beauty and decay, nourishment and need, finality and regeneration.
Live Wild,
Monica
Pictured above: Gazing up at feathery clouds in a blue Alaskan sky, with a crisply-painted blue and white boat in the foreground.
