A love letter to summer.
things that caught my eye (and heart) as I found the golden edges of the season.
Story & Thread. is a weekly letter exploring the intersection of creativity, mothering and the living world, with a home and a garden at the heart...
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“Syrup dripping from a spoon.
Buttercups.
A harvest moon.
Sun like honey on the floor.
Warm as the steps by our back door.” — Shirley Hughes.
I wanted to start this post with a profound literary quote that felt familiar in terms of my experience of summer and by a writer I know and love. I came close with Plath, Woolf and even Dickens. And yet I failed, as it seems I only read children’s books now…!
However, the words above do mean summer to me with a sense of honeyed warmth that no other quote could quite conjure. It is taken from a slightly tattered version of ‘Colours’ by the doyenne of children’s literature, Shirley Hughes. The thirty-plus-year-old peeling paperback features mine and my sister’s names handwritten neatly at front, and the way the words spill from line to line are embroidered into the fabric of my soul.
The pictures of the little girl and her baby brother, beautifully drawn by Hughes now feel almost impossibly familiar. I see the likeness in my own children sitting on the step by our own back door and how each night before bed, my daughter can read (well, remember and recite) the whole thing, which feels as beautifully full circle as a harvest moon.
A seasonal shift.
Here we are within the final days of summer, a time not unlike ‘Romjul’1, those languorous days between Christmas and New Year which are neither one thing or the other, but are everything all at the same time. And yet it has felt to me as though there has been change in the air since beginning of August. A subtle shift signalling that we were approaching a threshold, moving from growth to gathering, and despite the lingering light, I began to hear the first whisperings to turn inwards once again.
Corners of light.
This summer I found myself at home in the quieter corners and edges of summer, where the light was muted, hazy and often tinged with magic.
I noticed the light — within the watercolour coolness of the (too) early morning light; the filagree shadows filtered by ancient trees; the patina of burnished copper, gold and terracotta on the neighbouring houses in the early evening and within the gentle palette of the twilight hours.
Watery wisdom.
A journey within, led by a connection to the watery depths of our inner selves, in order to find wholeness, freedom and ease.
The heat of June had me seeking out shadows and craving watery coolness; July went on to be one of the wettest on record (!); and August has felt like molten gold.
So whilst the water element has manifested itself through plentiful puddles, I turned to the energetic qualities of water. I have found it helpful to release pressure on myself and unfolding situations by applying the tenets of water and asking where I can find the most ease — with an intention of fostering presence, connecting to my senses and noticing joy as a way to become immersed in intuitive flow.
S l o w time.
August is a month that seems to follow a different rhythm and reminds me to see time imbued with a fullness of experience and the potentiality of presence.
Time is not linear but rounded and full, with ebbs and flows, and a feeling of coming full circle each time we experience the changing of the seasons. Noticing thresholds gives me an anchor and a marker of time, reminding me of the wisdom of my own inner seasons too.
It feels like here is a good moment to pause on the doorstep of a new season and reflect on the things that caught my eye (and heart) as I wandered in the summer shadows…
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