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In my dream,
the Summer Queen
is wrapped in summer’s fire,
garbed in gowns of gold and brown,
and blazing with desire,
the grass and grains
are winding down,
leaning in ebbing spires.
She feels the heat beneath her feet,
her stride is wide,
her lips are sweet,
her arms lift up to lightning streaks.
She twirls around on thirsty ground
raising the passions higher.
With hips and hopes expanding wide
her heart alight with joy and pride
her song is strong,
her howls are long,
her many prayers are hot and bold
and then her plans
find ease at last
remembering the wheel spins fast
it’s nearly time to share the floor,
as Autumn’s Queen
peeks round
the door.

In August, I feel held in a space between summer’s fire and summer’s fatigue. There has been a blooming and a ripening, and now a harvesting and a fading begin as the time comes to turn the page.

There are cracks
where inspiration dwells
and hope still wanders,
places where wonder seeps back
onto parched terrain
and breathes a promise
of joy to come.
There are droplets of courage
sprinkled across buds of faith
and tender shoots
taking root in hidden spaces
where they will twine into possibilities,
seeking and extending
tentative petals to the sky,
keeping the pact they made
before being,
to bloom when they can.

At this point in the year I feel held suspended in a space between summer's fire and summer's fatigue. The air is thick and stifling, the flowers are wilting, the ground is parched, and I feel a sensation in the air of the approaching time to "turn the page."

Be determined.
Hold your ground.
Set firm boundaries. 
Be sharp when necessary.
Be sweet when you can be.
Bloom proudly,
or quietly,
it is up to you.
Have fortitude of skin
and tenacity of reach.
Don’t give up.
Mind the edges.
Wait for the right time.
Focus on the task at hand.
Be diligent in seeking opportunity.
Listen to the shadows and the wind.
Celebrate both rain and sun.
Keep company with those
who tend to the thriving of things.
Be patient.
Trust the ripening.

Many of us inherit our tastes from our parents. I am no exception. My mother was an artist with her own gallery. There she sold her paintings and a few decorative items that included carved wooden works by my brother and his wife, that might be bought by those who came in for a look around. She primarily painted abstracts, and she enjoyed wielding her brush to music. She had a brush in her hand most of every day. She once told me she had sold paintings to people all over the world.

Over the past few days, my family and I have celebrated Lammas, a European harvest festival. But we don't include Lammas in the sacred calendar for Ariadne's Tribe. Why not? First, there's the fact that the modern Neopagan eight-fold wheel of the year hadn't been invented yet back in the Bronze Age. But there's also the fact that in the Mediterranean, this isn't harvest time.

Many of us live in the northern temperate zone - the parts of North America and Eurasia that have four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter. Those seasons may be milder or more severe depending on the local climate, but they're still there.

According to the internet, ‘one swallow does not a summer make’ is a quote that can be attributed to Aristotle. The connection between summer and swallows is clearly a longstanding one. British swallows winter in South Africa. Or, arguably, South African swallows come to the UK to breed. There are many other birds whose migration to the UK at this time of year is part of the coming of summer.

Swifts, swallows and house martins aren’t always easy to tell apart in flight, and at twilight when they hunt for insects, telling them apart from bats can also be tricky. It’s the way the hunter is obliged to follow their prey through the air that means insect eating birds and bats are similar. There’s a rather (accidentally) amusing poem by D.H. Lawrence in which the poet is rather upset that his birds turn out to be bats. You can read that here - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44574/bat

Key moments in the lives of plants do not always tie in to the standard eight festivals. Yes, the snowdrops flower at Imbolc and hawthorn blooms around Beltain and the grain is generally ripe for Lugnasadh, but these are just a few plants. Many other plants come into their own at other times in the year. A real relationship with the plant life of the UK calls for more attention than just festival plants. If you are not in the UK, your seasonal plants will be different and I think it’s really important to engage with what’s around you, not what comes from the history of the festival.

One of my favourite April wildflowers is the Kingcup – they tend to bloom once it starts feeling warm and springish. Large, exuberant yellow flowers, often occurring in great profusion.  Kingcups favour damp places, canal edges, riverbanks, ponds and streams.