Welcome to Summer <3

Summer Solstice reflections

Happy Summer, everyone :)

I hope you’re all doing well. I’m so sorry I haven’t done a post in such a long time. On top of everything else happening in our fractured world, I got a tax audit letter on May 16 and have been working on that nearly every day since. Have you ever been audited? 0/10, I do not recommend. :( The deadline to send everything in to the IRS is my birthday, this Friday. What a nice, fun gift. :D Though, it will definitely be good to have it behind me, and once this all is done, I’ll be back to my regular schedule of posting 1-2 times per week. I also look so much forward to more offerings, too - live videos, performances, workshops, collaborative posts and lives with other Substack writers, too. There is so much to do and share with you all and I really look forward to getting back on track. Thank you so very much for all of your patience with me, and your continued kindness and support. <3

“Summer means happy times and good sunshine.” - Brian Wilson

Where were you for the summer solstice and the first day of the summer season? The official solstice occurred at 10:42pm ET on June 20th. I took the ferry to Rockaway that morning, spending the whole day working on my audit indoors, taking two small breaks to visit the boardwalk. After many hours of PDFs and spreadsheets, I went to bed feeling a bit sad and a bit overwhelmed, though happy at least to be where I was.

The next morning I woke up at 5:30, put my sneakers on, went outside, and walked to the beach. The first official day of summer and a big yellow sun was rising in the sky. The beach was fairly clear of people, save for a few scattered joggers, dog walkers, surfers with their boards, one or two morning saunterers like me, and a funny group of celebrators stationed on and around the lifeguard post, harmless and jovial, and who definitely hadn’t been to sleep yet from the night before.

In the course of the 2 hours I walked at the shoreline, I felt the natural, regulating shift of all my systems. My nervous system, respiratory, digestive. The sound of the waves, the salty ocean air, the sun reflecting on the water, the resistance of the sand underfoot. I felt my stresses melting away slowly, becoming a distance memory, even if temporarily. The perfect first morning of the summer season.

As the day went on, long after I took the ferry back to Manhattan, I observed how the effects of the ocean continued to last. My mood was lighter, my patience longer, heart rate slower, my tolerance higher - particular things didn’t bother me as much or at all like they usually do, the tax audit didn’t feel quite as insurmountable and dreadful as it did the day before. For my emotional, physical, and mental health, I was grateful for the ability to travel to water so easily. On a scientific level, I felt amazed, as always, by the lifelong and continuous reminder of the enduring impacts of nature, bringing us into the present moment with ease, asking for nothing in return.

My friend Jessie, who lives by the Jersey shore once said to me, ‘I’ll never understand why everyone doesn’t live at the ocean,’ and while it was said in jest, the sentiment is real, because we all really do need to spend frequent, continuous, intentional time in nature. Whether it’s the ocean, lake, river, sea, or the mountains, forest, woods, desert, a garden, anywhere that speaks to us, that we have access to. A place to access our own inner peace, our best selves, alive and grateful in the present moment, all of the senses activated.

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Where do you like to go? Is there a place by you that you like to visit? What kind of environment is it? What do you notice, how are your senses energized?

Sound:

Sight:

Scent:

Touch:

Taste:

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Here is what I noticed at the ocean in Rockaway:

Sight: the bright sunrise, the reflection on the water, the water meeting sand on the shoreline, all different sized and shaped footprints in the sand from people, dogs, and birds, ships in the distance on the horizon, clouds, green seaweed on the rocks

Sound: the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing on the shore, seagulls calling, occasional human voices, 1 or 2 ship horns

Scent: the salty ocean air

Touch: the resistance and softness of the grounding sand under my feet, seashells and rocks, grains of sand, the cool water washing up close

Taste: salty ocean air, coffee

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I slept so well that night, my body and mind eased into a deep and restorative sleep touched by simple, magical dreams. <3

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Below are some quotes about or related somehow to the ocean, the sea, the beach, the shore. Which is your favorite today? Is there another not listed here that you like?

Ocean Quotes

“I am the shore and the ocean, awaiting myself on both sides.” - Dejan Stojanovic

“Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.” - H.P. Lovecraft

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” - Jacques Cousteau

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” - Ryunosuke Satoro

“No man is an island,' said John Donne. I feel we are all islands -- in a common sea.” - Anne Morrow Lingbergh

“The ocean’s lullaby can calm even the most restless soul.”

“To go out with the setting sun on an empty beach is to truly embrace your solitude.” - Jeanne Moreau

“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.” - Mother Teresa

“The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.” - Henry David Thoreau

“The heart of man is very much like the sea. It has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls, too.” - Vincent van Gogh

“You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.” - Alan Watts

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.” - Werner Herzog

“..a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire..” - Charles Dickens

“We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.” - Henry David Thoreau

“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea...” - Rachel Carson

“The ocean doesn't apologize for its depth, and neither should you.”

“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” - Saint Augustine

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.” - Don Miguel Ruiz

“I have since become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days when the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea water and the incessant wind that blows across the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods.” - E.B. White

“If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.” - Tom Waits

“There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.” - Mary Oliver

“If I tried to describe my personality, I'd start to gush about living by the ocean half my life and being brought up on 'Alice in Wonderland' and believing in magic for years and years.” - Sylvia Plath

“The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" - E.B. White

“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” - Rachel Carson

“I'm going to die one day. I know it's coming for me, too. I'll be a mountain, I'll be a stone on the beach. I'll be nourishment.” - Mary Oliver

"The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope.” - Jacques Cousteau

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By the Sea

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me.

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve —
And then I started too.

And he — he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, — then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.

-Emily Dickinson

Here is 1.5 minutes of soothing shoreline ocean waves: June 21 at 6:37am in Rockaway

Thank you all so very much for taking the time to read this post. Please share any thoughts, reflections, ideas, stories in the comments. As always, I look forward so much to reading them. I’ll be posting again this week, as Friday is my 38th birthday and I have lots on my mind. Times are tough right now, there is a lot to feel fearful of, to feel sorrow about, to feel angry about. Let’s stick together and remind each other that we are not alone, that there are also things to feel good about, things we need to courageously protect. Let’s help each other hold onto hope with all our hearts. Hope is the very thing that keeps us all alive after all - that and wind, sun, air, the sea, and each other. <3

Happy Summer, everyone. Sending good thoughts to you all.

Have a wonderful day. xoxo