Dear Summer,

You are hot, oh so very hot. Here on the eastern side of the North American continent.
I enjoy thinking how we are here on this planet we call Earth, which goes around a star we call the Sun, which causes us to divide time into logical groupings we refer to as seasons, of which you are one.

And thanks to you, I am remembering how to celebrate mornings.

I wake up very early and spend time outside as the Sun is just popping up on the horizon. Before the rays expand and begin to blanket everything in heat, just heat and heat. These mornings are magical.

I watch the chickens pecking around for insects, hear the songbirds in the trees, and watch the horses turn to face the sunrise to feel the glowing light they have missed in the darkness of the night.

I cherish the way a brown, scraggly textured pottery mug feels in my hand, which holds juiced carrot and apple, turmeric and ginger and just a little bit of lemon.

Because of you, I am remembering how mornings feel like magic. Like blank canvases, white and crispy fresh, yearning for a new creation. I hold this magic close and feel it washing over me...feel it like the shoreline of the ocean when I would lie on the sand flat on my back as a child and let the waves roll over me. Just like that.

Thanks to you, Summer, this farm welcomed girls here every day last week so they could experience this land and the animals here. Exploring the creativity held in their blossoming hearts and feeling unencumbered by the structure of a classroom. They climbed trees, dug carrots from the Earth, and shared the cool of the water and shade as they bathed the horses. They are children so they remember more easily and connect readily with that wild, undomesticated part of their humanity that longs to feel the dirt and hear the bird songs and taste the intensity of a tomato pulled ripe right off the green plant growing.

Thanks to you, I am remembering how good the Earth feels to my bare feet. I walk in the mornings on the damp, cool grass and it feels like a healing salve seeping into the cells of my body. They sing blissfully with the dose of direct contact with the natural world. Skin and tissue and bone feeling heavy into the soil and rocks and grass as I walk up the dirt road near the barn. If this day was composed only of rhythms of this barefoot walking, it would be perfect.

The old pecan trees on this land stretch strong branches into the sky and create a canopy of green that sways gently with the breezes you sometimes bring to soften the heat of the day. I sit under these trees and the space feels like a sanctuary with morning sunlight sprinkling glittering rays here and there. I think the trees of my childhood must have somehow whispered to these trees an introduction so they wouldn't know me as a stranger. I have always loved trees and spent hours and hours with them when I was a child.

And thanks to you, I am remembering how much I love the vibrancy of the color green. The grasses in the pastures, the tops of carrots, the fat horned worms that try to eat up all the tomato plants. The bright green basil and oregano and the more muted green of sage. The vine that threatens to take over the front porch of the farm house.

Summer, thank you. Today, this morning, I am experiencing life in a way I choose and grateful for every horned worm and every half-eaten tomato tragedy and every chicken and horse and good cup of coffee.