July

July. This month always sneaks up on me, both time-wise on the calendar and emotionally as well. July always feels like a time of uncertainty, of unsettling for me. It is a time of thunderstorms both literal and figuratively. It is a time of heat and uncomfortableness. July, she so often sneaks up behind me and surprises me with her passions and her high emotions. The temperature often matches my emotions. Mother Nature is in the height of energy. The heat is often stifling, the humidity is often high, plants are leaping to new heights seemingly overnight and sometimes within an hour. Was the squash plant really reaching that far this morning? Were these baby beans here this afternoon? Just at the point where we can’t take it anymore, where the heat feels very well near to killing us as well as our gardens, suddenly the sky darkens, clouds roll in, the wind blows and the heavens open with a rush of rain. The parched earth opens her mouth gratefully, drinking in the coolness of the heavens.

I struggle this time of year. Often I forget. This is a time of upheaval for me. A time of unbidden memories and emotions. Every year I am once again surprised. Why am I feeling this anxiety, this fear, this uncomfortableness? Something must be occurring, but what? Am I in danger of being hurt once again? Shall I steel myself against the coming attack, the coming onslaught of emotions. Shall I dry myself out like the earth around me, locking myself away from the nourishing drink of the heavens until my growth is stifled? The catalyst occurs, the strife begins, the storm approaches. The thunder rumbles, I quake in fear in the recesses of my mind wondering what new onslaught of terror awaits me. Suddenly the heavens open, the cleansing rain pours down and I open my mouth, grateful for the drink of awakening pouring down my throat. The coolness of the realization washes over my overheated soul. I root myself to the earth, spread my limbs to the heavens and let the power of possibility pour forth from my soul. I am not in danger. I am not threatened. I am not what has happened to me. I am so much more than what I am in this moment. Waiting, like the plants of the garden to grow and bloom, bearing fruit for the hungry around me. I am loved and wanted. I am full of potential and in this moment, in this heat of the moments before my rebirth, I must rest. I can be still. Enjoy July. Enjoy the blooms and births around me. Revel in the heaviness of my limbs. I am not forgetting. I am not being lazy. I am preparing, storing up my energy, allowing it to build. For it is not in July that the harvest occurs completely and to its fullest, but in the heat of August and the cool nights of September that the fruits of our labors are reaped.