Somewhere in the dusty recesses of my noggin, the passage of these sultry summer days is being marked, and ever so wistfully. The clock of the seasons is ticking away in the background, and hearing it, I find myself pondering the lessons held out by this golden interval that is passing away all too swiftly. The other three seasons of a northern calendar year are splendid of course, and there are surely other fine summers ahead, but this summer is waning, and its days are numbered. The summer solstice has come and gone, and we are sliding gently down the hill toward autumn, shorter days and longer nights.
Thoughts of coming and going are ever inscribed on summer's middling pages, and they're unsettling notions, making for restlessness and vague discontent, a gentle melancholy concerning the nature of time, what is falling away and the transience of all earthly things. A heightened awareness of suchness (or tathata) is a middle-of-the-summer thing for sure. For the most part, one goes gently along with the flow, breathing in and out, trying to rest in the moment and do the gardeny things that need doing.
Old garden roses are a perfect metaphor for the season. Most bloom once in a calendar year, but what a show they put on when they do. Their unruly tangles of wickedly thorny canes and blue-green leaves wear delicate pink (for the most part) blooms with crinkled petals and golden hearts. Each rose is unique, and each is exquisite from budding until its faded petals flutter to earth like snowflakes. For several weeks after Midsummer, fragrance lingers in every corner of the garden, and every year I fall in love with old roses all over again. It is nothing short of a miracle that creatures so beautiful and fragile thrive this far north.
Once in a while, I catch a glimpse of the Great Mystery while I am hanging out in the garden, and that is surely what this old life is all about. I wish I did a better job of remembering that and keeping everything in perspective, but forgetting now and then is quite all right - the roses in my garden remind me.
3 comments:
Your rose is amazingly perfect, and that it also has scent just makes it even more beautiful, as I imagine standing there looking at it. Thanks so much for sending this perfection along, as well as the moment of connection to all.
Oh Cate... I too have been pondering impermanence! Your writing about it is so timely and so lovely, as usual. I too try to keep perspective about it all, remembering the Great Mystery, etc; and the transience of time and physicality, which shouldn't come as a surprise, but somehow it does, feeling the body's decline, knowing that everything passes, including the body... sigh...
BEAUTIFUL
the scent has
arrived
far from your garden
to my unkept garden at this time.
Not in the past as I stayed in my garden
but now
with health issues
I dream of how it was once perfect.
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