Solstice agreements for summer's pleasures, pains, griefs, & joys

Five supportive guidelines for what can be a delicious, deep, and also difficult season.

Happy summer, friends.

We’ve arrived at the longest daylight for us in the northern hemisphere. A time to celebrate of the official start of summer. The joy of late sunsets, the deliciousness of grilling and picnics, the abundance of vegetables and berries, and all the sweet play and rest that summer can bring our way. And, summer solstice means the days gets shorter and shorter from here. It means the worst of wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, and droughts are coming. Political unrest and violence often intensify during this time. Not to mention the pressure — you better take advantage of summer breaks so you can be even more productive in the fall, dammit! Oy.

So how can we hold this both? How to address the overwhelm and hardship that summer can now bring, while fully enjoying the beauty and pleasure of this delicious season?

Next week starts Grief School Summer Camp, a week of programs and practices in Brooklyn that me and my beloved collaborator kwonyin are creating in community. To help guide our week, we’re borrowing/nurturing Frank Ostaseski’s Five Invitations as daily guideposts. The Five Invitations are essentially Frank’s perspective on what death can teach us about living life fully, insights he’s gained from years leading the Zen Hospice Project and living an awakened life. These invitations are:

1. Don’t wait

2. Welcome everything, push away nothing

3. Bring your whole self to the experience

4. Find a place of rest in the middle of things

5. Cultivate don’t-know mind

This start-of-summer feels like a more perfect time than any to practice with these as a way to hold the “both”.

1. Don’t wait, as in, nothing is guaranteed about the future, so be present with right now. What sweetness is here in this moment? You made it to today. What deserves honoring? You’re here. What’s the action that it’s time to take? As Mona (be-shen) shared in their solstice-themed newsletter, “Live this day as you want to be spending the rest of your life.”

2. Welcome everything, as in, everything that’s happening is real and true and gets to be part of the experience. Yes, summer is wonderful. Yes, summer may be scary. Yes, there are ample celebrations and dinners and dancing opportunities on my calendar. Yes, there’s a lot on my plate. Yes, climate change is real and we are in for tough times. Yes, there’s all the loss. Yes, yes, and yes.

3. Bringing your whole self, as in, whatever our feelings and responses are to the above get to show up. No bad parts. Experiencing joy and the pain both hold wisdom. Every part of ourselves has something worthy of expressing.

4. Find a place of rest amidst it all. What a good summertime invitation. As Tricia Hersey asserts through her practice The Nap Ministry, rest can be an act resistance. It’s also deeply nourishing. It allows us to make space for what’s next and what’s to come. Slow it down if you can, and rest right here.

5. Cultivate don’t-know (aka beginners) mind. I often think of this quote by Suzuki Roshi: “In the beginners mind there are many possibilities, but in the experts there are few.” After graduations, amidst rites of passage, and moving past the winter, summer is ripe for seeing the world with fresh eyes. Don’t-know mind lets us live feeling how fresh this moment truly is, and thus our responses can be too.

I’m wishing you a sweet, strong, nourishing summer. May these days of extra luminance provide us with the inner light we need to keep going.