whispered the wind and I overheard.
It sings in summer showers and the music of the rain,
falling on the growing grain,
There is a song, a song without a word
Whispered the sea and I overheard.
It burbles in the brooks and steams and rivers running clear,
If you listen you can hear...
Listen! you can hear it
Listen! you can hear it
In the echoes of the endless ocean swell.
Treat the earth well..."
- Song of the Earth ~ Tom Chapin
In the morning of a new summer day, a fresh beginning of birdsong and glows of sunshine arrives. It's a creation of the bursting forth of goldfinches and the buzz of honeybees collecting pollen. In each Summer day the essence of life created in Spring bursts into a blaze of life in the motion of synergy, in the strum of a guitar being played on a front porch as the travelers pedal and whirr past on bicycles, and the fragrant combination of barbecues, sweat, grass clippings, rain, and flower gardens becomes a collage of the senses.
The passage of time seems slower. It's been said to be lazier, but it's a time to let the heartbeat of humanity reverberate in our movement along the way. In a summer of dry weather in the United States, it is a time to hear things differently, to hear the mourning doves crying as the day becomes the cool blue night and to awake and paddle out onto the water and see ducks feasting together just after dawn. It is here we find the uniqueness of each day that forms each year and each life.
The spirit of togetherness surrounds us in nature and neighborhoods. In a field of wildflowers and shrubs I passed on a bike ride recently, a cloud of goldfinches and starlings begin chirping flying over the flowers and filling into the sky with color. Their songs distinctly unique, even in unison, can give us a sense of community with nature, with those we love, with the places we live.
We hear the passage of the trains as they roll through our communities and see the jet streams that connect us all through the skies. These sounds, echo with our heartbeat as we move with being. The being that can be felt with our bare feet, the untapped experience that ultimately adds a picture or aroma to our existences, to our lives. The movements of this symphony are found in the screaming of young children flying on swings as they take off and feel the exhilaration of the moment, the fiddles singing into the night as dancers and old friends gather to feel their souls together, the quiet melody of a choir singing the memory of those lives who have been a part of ours but are now memory, and the walks with loved ones where we cherish what is held with dear trust and grown in the minutes of laughter and wonder.
As the last full month of summer draws to an end, its sunset is not the foreshadowing of nightfall, but the transition into Autumn. The fall leaves and period of change, of settling, and final foraging of the summer's warmth before we bring out the blankets and hooded sweatshirts. Summer will be missed, but the symphony continues and evolves as new instruments join the flock to continue each measure in the harmonies of the harvest.
