Two days in a row there was a light sprinkle and a cloud filled sky to accompany my morning walk. With a few exceptions every day since January had been sun drenched; something must be up. When I came home my husband told me about May Grey and June Gloom; the weather phenomena that causes morning cloud coverage over Southern California. I was thinking about seasons and how I was entering internally into a Winter, even though it was June, which means Summer in most of the United States. So I was surprised that the late Spring days were grey and full of a quiet energy, much like my inner world.
The Midwest and Northeast, in particular, are known for their distinctive seasons, but I have always delighted in the subtle seasonal shifts in the Arizona desert, the New Mexico high desert and now the California Coastal desert. There were flowers in January, but now there are more, and there are trees flowering and offering fruit. Everyday I am more deeply drawn into the labyrinths that emanate from the succulents that line my path. In the fog of grey skies and draught these plants so generously display their bright and unusual flowers and leaves. In a place known for being 70 degrees on any given day one must look to other patterns and events to carve out seasonal rituals. Every place has its own rhythm and when that rhythm slows down we can get a more complete sense of what animates and fuels the places we live or visit.
For the past 7 years and many years before then, I was used to a sort of melancholy descending in January and if lucky leaving by mid-March as the days lengthened, and one could go outside not looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My natural rhythm calls for times of hibernation and a cold snowy winter usually fit the bill, but for now, a gloomy June will do.
Do you notice that your inner weather patterns mirror outer ones or vice versa? How do you honor or experience the change of seasons?
