Littered With Stars

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.

With the onset of autumn, the long summer recedes into memory; the hours of daylight shorten as the hours of night time lengthen. As darkness closes in, as enthusiasm begins to wane, so, in life, it is easy to misread what we once understood to be a “challenge” to be met as, instead, a burden to be borne. Even in the wilderness by day and by night, however, guidance is all around if we choose to see it for what it is, rather than what is may appear to be, and, of course, having seen clearly to follow its lead.