Since the email version of news from The Oasis goes out every two weeks, I thought I would start here...in late August in the Southeastern United States, just documenting what's going on in this place and in this season.
Then, in two weeks, when news from The Oasis goes out again, I'll post again on the same topic and you can follow how things change as the seasons progress.
I hope this will encourage each of you to look at your own bio-region, your own local environment, and just gently help you to start paying attention to the changes that happen...from late Summer...to Fall...to Winter...to Spring...and back around to Summer all over again.
What can you notice? Well...anything you like, but I would suggest the weather, outdoor sounds, what wild plants and animals catch your eye. How does your mood and energy shift as the seasons change? And I invite you to come back here, to this post, and contribute your own bioregional observations of this late summer season (or winter, if you happen to live in another part of the world).
Here just south of Atlanta on this hot August afternoon, it's almost too hot to go outside. The heat and humidity make it hard to breathe as I cross from my air-conditioned threshold into the world of fresh cut grass and crawling ants in my backyard.
Along the lower fence, the goldenrods are still sending their tall leafy stalks toward the sky, as they have all summer, saving the promise of their fragrant golden blooms till a little later in the month.
As the afternoon grows longer, the sultry Southern air reverberates with the high, pulsating calls of the cicadas, or locusts. That sound brings back the warm summer evenings of childhood, as the adults sat talking on the porch drinking sweet iced tea and we children laughed and chased each other in looping circles till darkness fell.
An orb spider, her delicate web vibrating as she delicately picks her way across the center, casts an intricate shadow along the side of the house. Our resident fence lizard, given Pickett as his moniker, soaks up the last rays of sunshine on the sidewalk along the side of the house. A few butterflies, magnificent Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, drift lazily by, taken here and there by the slightest shift in the warm air.
Heat. Humidity. Sound. The August sun sinks toward the horizon. Supper's ready and I go inside.
Dear Ellen,
Your August experience of the heat and that it is almost too hot to go outside is incredible when we are freezing here in the S.E. of France near Geneva. At 3,000 mts. its snowing in the mountains. Just 600 mts. higher than us houses have smoke coming out of their chimneys.
In Switzerland water is 50 mts. high after floods. It has rained for 2 days and will continue tomorrow.
The temperature is much warmer the further south one goes in France. However, the West of the country has never had such a drought.
Portugal and Spain are experiencing the worst forest fires in decades.
So Europe is going through the mill at the moment and so are my emotions.
You are perfectly right when you say emotions are affected by the weather - its pretty depressing at the moment.
The sun is supposed to shine mid week so I look forward to a brighter forecast of my mood. Thank you for the warmth of your Sounds of Summer. Carole
Posted by: Carole Barnerias | August 22, 2005 at 06:19 PM