Summer Blues

Somewhere in the dim recesses of one's mind, seasonal changes and the passage of summer days are being marked.  A celestial clock is ticking away in the background, and hearing it, one can't help thinking that the long golden season is on its way out.  I love the other three seasons of the calendar year, and there are surely other fine summers ahead, but this summer is fading, and its shining days are numbered. Such thoughts of coming and going are always inscribed on summer's middling pages, and they are unsettling notions, making for general restlessness and vague discontent, a gentle melancholy about the transience of all things.

An awareness of suchness (or tathata) is a midsummer thing, and for the most part, one goes gently along with the flow, breathing in and out, trying to rest in the moment and doing the things which need doing.  Once in a while though, the melancholy floats to the surface, and along comes the ancient naysaying crone who dwells at the back of my noggin with her troubling questions.  What is the point of these pathetic ramblings with camera and notebook, all the long wordy paragraphs and morning blog entries, she asks slyly, brandishing her wooden spoon as she stirs the pot.  What is this really all about?

The two images here are from last weekend's potterings around a beaver pond on the Two Hundred Acre Wood, and when I downloaded them yesterday, my inner naysayer took a long look and then went slinking back into the shadows.  Was it the confetti colored leaves floating on the surface that sent her packing, the satiny ripples moving slowly outward on the pond, the reflected trees, or the peaceful deep blue of the water?  Whatever it was, she got the message.  Sometimes, just sometimes, one catches a glimpse of the Great Mystery when prowling with camera and notebook on summer days.  That is the point of all this - that is what it's all about.