Summertime feels abundant. The warmth of the sun on skin and trees vibrant in their green demonstrate life. It’s the abundance that comes after the natural world’s birth in the spring. In the summer, it’s all grown up.
And then comes fall, a reminder that what lives comes to pass, that life dies, and the cycle continues. Autumn is the dying of life that blossoms in the summer. But to me, there’s another season, and it doesn’t have a name, but it takes place between summer and autumn.
Seasonal Transitions
I think this transitional period represents aging, growing older, and moving into new realms of life. In my opinion, some of the magic that comes with seasonal shifts is that they don’t happen suddenly. The summer sun doesn’t just shift to cloudy and rainy days, it happens over time, slowly.
Seasonal transitions are a beautiful way of reminding ourselves that change is always occurring. Most of the time slowly until one day we realize we are in a different season of our lives. There are now different people and different settings, and we are doing different things. Allowing myself to change with the seasons has kept my life more intentional.
But I don’t want this post to be about how I want to change come autumn, I want it to be about this season right now. The in-between summer and autumn. Here are some things I’ve been appreciating about it.
Presence and Habits in the Late Summer
It is still too warm to drink hot matcha and coffee in the mornings, but the ritual of having something to sip on has become more important. In general, simple rituals have been easing their way into my life. I’m writing more, pulling tarot cards again, and watching sunsets more at home. This time feels grounding. During the summer I’ve noticed my forms of self-care to be more spontaneous. Travel is more appealing in the summer, but now that it is fleeting, I want to spend more cozy time in my home.
The scents have shifted, and the weather is becoming more unpredictable. There’s a tinge of smoke in the air, and the evenings are filled with cozy scents drifting from neighbors’ kitchens. The mornings are darker and cloudier, enough so that I feel an urge to put on a sweater. Some mornings I awake to a drizzle of rain.
Days are full of energy, but mornings and evenings are slower-paced. Recently my friends and I went camping in Yosemite, and one day we spent outside hiking, swimming in a river, and lying on a rock under the sun. In the evening we lit a campfire, roasted marshmallows, and listened to folk music while we had conversations in our sleeping bags, the moonlight illuminating our tent. It felt exactly how I should be using this daily energy.
The colors are vibrant. Sure, some of it is turning to brown but it makes room for the emerging colors of fall, like rainbows and sunsets from fire pollution.
And finally, it feels like an era of life is coming to a close and making room for another. This seasonal transition has urged me to think about my own transitions and to reflect over this summer while embracing whatever is next to come.
