High Summer

[notquiteaphoenix]

So it was a “Wheel of the Year” Holiday this last weekend and one that leaves me a bit more disconnected. I can’t say I’m celebrating Lammas or Lughnasadh really but I think I would mark “High Summer” as a part of my individual practice.

Mark Green (of the atheopagan podcast The Wonder and Atheopaganism wordpress) is not the first to say it but I like the reminder of paganism as a practice centered around place. Aka my climate is different than the British Isles and I’m deeply tied to more cycles than a harvest one. The grain grown around me is mainly animal feed—and I personally don’t eat such animal products. And while the harvest of many vegetables started earlier in the spring in the very important cold frames anyways, getting a community supported agriculture (CSA) box with its accompanying newsletter along with updates of the rural news from my local NPR repeater station, climate change has been messing with both our rain patterns and temperature, making “First Harvest” (a name sometimes associated with this holiday) a malleable and uncertain target. “Dimming”, as Green uses, does not work for me as a holiday name (the only celebratory with the word “dimming” for this holiday happens to be that we finally broke away from above 90F/ 32C temperatures) so I think I will go with a suggestion I hear sometimes of “High Summer.”

High Summer, for my clime and life, is the beginning of summer fading but celebratory in much of the anticipated summer has arrived—high temperatures, long awaited fruits and veggies, summer events like outdoor concerts and markets, perfect swimming days—and a time to start looking towards fall while making sure to appreciate what is left of summer. (My personal High Summer celebration was allowing myself a rare beer during my work week—11 hour work days and alcohol are not a good regular mix for good sleep—and roasted veggie sandwiches with produce from my CSA box and my own herbs.

So on the summer side of things, I plan on:

• Enjoying watermelon (I’ve only had it once this season!)

• Popsicles

• Swimming

• More farmers markets

• Food and beer on the patio of my favorite local brewery

• Walks at dawn/dusk

• More grabbing coffee and a book to bring down to the riverside, where the trees and water provide great temperature relief

• Bonfires with friends

I’m off to a bit haphazard start to my personal goal of celebrating more Wheel of the Year type holidays this year but at the same time I feel like I have been taking good personal stock of the seasons. With COVID, I haven’t had a chance to see if I mesh well with my local pagan groups as a secular pagan/atheopagan (my personal wiffle-waffling over many types of self labels could fill book; with queer/lgbt nomenclature, my ethnicity as an adoptee aka census needs to let me just put “white” if they don’t want me to try and fit in an essay into the clarification section, etc.) to celebrate holidays with others, but we will see if around fall or winter I can try.

For now, this upcoming weekend I am going to a bonfire with work friends and if I am the only one thinking of this as a celebration of a holy time, well, my personal practice is meant for me.