I talk about Summer Solstice as the season of “yang”.
It’s the time of year when action, output, productivity, movement, noise, and busyness are in line with the natural order.
My setting is proof.
I’m down at Lake Lure, a lake about an hour from where I live. It’s 4th of July week, so the beaches, pools, tennis courts, and icecream stands are crammed with vacationing families.
There is music blaring. There are children in various states of joy and agony (depending on when the sugar hit their systems). The landscaping crews are running weed eaters and leaf blowers. The golf course is full. The restaurants are cranking. The parking lots are at capacity with lines of cars roasting in the sun. The lake heaves from the continuous wakes of pontoon boats and water-skiers.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s busy.
Even though these people are “on vacation” or “taking time off” they’re active; busy as all hell.
Nature is also busy as all hell; plants gulping starlight, parents rearing young, hunting, stalking, birthing, and maximizing these long-ass days.
Just writing that sent my Pitta into overdrive.
So, this is where that black dot within the white half of the Yin-Yang comes in.
It’s the grain of winter solstice in a silo’s worth of summer solstice.
It’s the time each day, or each month, or within each season that you power down, go dark, get off line, and rest.
This black dot is welcome relief for some of us, and intense FOMO for others.
Either way, it is what it is: there, necessary. So you might as well embrace it, plan for it, and do it the way you want.
Those kids out there, melting down because they’ve been swimming and playing since 6 am, what would be your advice to them?
“Just keep playing! You’re loosing daylight! Get your shit together and build another sandcastle! Nobody else is whining! KEEP GOING!!”
Or “Hey, I bet of you took a little break, maybe have a nap or go read in the shade, you could keep playing this evening“.
So, what advice will you give yourself? How can you embrace that “black dot” suspended in a sea of white?
How can you rest a little so you can “keep playing” later, so you can embrace this season of “yang”?
rest hard, play harder…
xo
kv
