Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summers day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.

~John Lubbock

Summer, glorious summer. We complain about the heat and about the humidity. Today I found myself feeling very sorry for my southern friends who are frying in continuous days of temps over 40°c. And thank ful for the rain here that cooled things down a little, even as it sent the humidity levels soaring.

Then as I took my lunch outside on the verandah in the company of my dogs, and relished the breeze that sprang up intermittently, I realised.

Is not this the perfect time to rest? To sit very still? To be?

Is that not what summer is all about? A time to be patient. A time to keep our cool. A time to listen, think, breathe.

We try to subvert the natural order of things when we wish the season past already. For without the summer, how could we appreciate the approach of autumn?

Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jewelled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.

~Ada Louise Huxtable