I love August, especially towards its end when the sun is softer, and golden, and the whole landscape feels warm and relaxed.
In August the nights come home again, which is lovely for those of us “early to bed and early to rise” people.
In August the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant ripen and the kitchen smells of marinara and pesto. The pantry begins to fill with jars of tomatoes, sauce, and preserves. The freezer is already stocked with berries, summer squash, and soup fixings for the cold days to come. My work room shares its space again between drying herbs, art supplies, and sewing projects. The garlic is cured, the seed-garlic saved, the small or incomplete heads have been made into garlic powder (a first for me, and one that had my visiting brother say, “Ohh, it smells so good in here. Like an old-time pizzaria,”) and the “crop” sits in its cool, dark pantry, cleaned and trimmed of stem and roots, waiting to be roasted, sauteed, and eaten up by me and those I cook for.
In early August autumn crops of bitter greens (my favorite kind) are sown in the beds where the potatoes, garlic, and summer greens have given way. August is the month of glory for annual flowers; the month when zinnia, tithonia, marigold, and sunflowers come into their beauty and abundance. Next year I will grow more of these from seed and plant more of them in the front gardens, which could use some color as the summer sun gives way and the shade grows into spaces unapproachable by it just a month before.
At some point this month, in the late afternoon of a fine day, I will leave the gardens to the care of Mother Earth. I will take myself to the edge of the sea to walk in the wavelets, then I will sit on the sand, and watch the lowering sun glitter like yellow diamonds upon the surface of the water and I will be with Mystery.
I am an earth-woman, with my roots deep in the soil, my hands filled with green energy, and my eyes seeing gardens (either those made, or those that could be made) everywhere.
I am also a sea-woman; someone with sea salt in my blood and tears. A woman more comfortable in the depths than on the surface; a woman sung to sleep by the sound of the tides, whose night dreams reveal her to herself as a mer-woman; kelp woven into hair. Gills and lungs, tail and legs, all in the same person.
I am one who lives between the worlds. So are you. Everything created does. Even the stones sing to those with ears to hear.
All is sacred. All is sacred. All is sacred. All is one.
Remember this my dears. Take heart. The essence of God is in you, and in all. Perhaps we might be brave enough to live our lives thusly. Wouldn’t that be something. May it be so.
Courage. Love one another. Love all.
