If you haven’t heard yet, today is the official first day of the summer season.  You may be thinking that it has felt like summer for awhile now, and that summer actually starts when it gets hot.  Who even decided when a season starts anyway? Is it another Hallmark Holiday?

Actually, the first day of summer always falls on the historic Summer Solstice.  The Summer Solstice is an astronomical event when the tilt of the Earth’s axis is most inclined toward the sun, creating more hours of sunlight within that rotation than any other rotation for the year.   Little too scienc-y for you?  After all, this is a blog about outdoor furniture… not astrophysics! Basically, there is more daylight today than any other day.  Tomorrow, it will be daylight for a few less minutes.  These changes aren’t as noticeable as they used to be in ancient times.  First, because we have so much unnatural light to trick us and because the way we change our clocks for daylight savings time alters what time it is when it’s light out and when it’s dark.

Pre-Christian cultures saw the Summer and Winter Solstices as holy days.  Since the Summer Solstice has been celebrated world-wide, across cultures and civilizations, it’s impossible to “sum up” how most people have celebrated this extraordinary yearly event.  But, after all, doesn’t that say something about its importance?  A moment in our precious Earth’s cycle so momentous, that nations who did not know about the other nor share any religious or political beliefs… celebrated the same event on the same day. Common themes usually center on celebrations of light, life, fertility, and health, and celebrating all the prosperity the Earth and the Sun provide us.

And what does the Earth and Sun bring us more than anything else? Plants! Some cultures believed that plants and flowers that flourished during this time and were picked on this day would have miraculous healing powers.  [Note: This blog is not approved by the FDA.  Eating the dandelions from your backyard today is not likely to cure anything!]

So, how should we celebrate this day?  No matter your religious affiliation, celebrating the day with more light than any other is perfectly justified!  I plan to really tend to my flower garden today, paying special attention to how lucky I am to live in a fertile world that produces such glorious blooms.  Then, I’m having a few friends over to cook up fish on our grill.  As we gather around my picnic table and chow down on fish with blueberry salsa and some other side I haven’t planned yet… I plan to give thanks for the endless bounty that the dirt provides us.  So, join me on this meaningful day, and enjoy the view from your garden bench or porch swing, patio chair or hammock.  It doesn’t matter if you live on an organic farm or just have a container of daisies you picked up at the supermarket one day.  The sun rises every morning as a gift to us all, and today is the perfect day to remember that we shouldn’t take it for granted.

Shine Today!

Hazel.