Story is the song line of a person’s life. We need to sing it and we need someone to hear the singing. Story told, story heard, story written, story read, create the web of life in words.

Christina Baldwin

Storycatcher, 2005

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Saturday 29 June 2013

Summer Mystery

The Heat is On. Finally. On the West Coast we are in beautiful summer.
Today I washed blankets and duvet covers and put away the flannel sheets. Yes that's right!
June 29th, I washed and folded flannel sheets and put them away for the season.
So I now know it's official. The heat has arrived. This is summer.
We forget on the coast that the true heat comes later than many areas. Every year we forget.
And then again, the whole thing can change. In the blink of an eye.
I was sitting at a cafe table and a woman sitting beside me leaned over and quietly said:
"Isn't it amazing how it can all change in the blink of an eye." Then she got up and left.
I didn't know her story. I didn't know what might have precipitated the comment.
What had happened to her? What changed in the blink of an eye? A mystery.

The month of June is just about over.
When I talk about this with friends and family, the same questions keeps coming back:
"But where did it go?" "What happened to June?"
I ask myself these very same questions at the end of every June. June seems to slip away on a cloud.
Aunt Olive always smiled when she asked: "What is so rare as a day in June?"
When I was a child I thought that was the beginning of a story. I waited for the answer, for the explanation to what really happened to June. " What indeed," was all she would say.
Now what was I supposed to make of that? Another mystery!

I listened to the gentle and powerful wisdom of Rachel Naomi Remen last Thursday evening.
If you are familiar with her, great.
If not, please do yourself a huge favor and read, "Kitchen Table Wisdom."
Doctor Remen, a medical doctor, celebrates Not Knowing. She reminds us that in this world where Mastery and Knowing have become the ideal, we might re-awaken to Mystery, and to open to Possibility.

I thought about all this.
I realised how attracted I am to the safety of neat, organised stories. I like a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Oh the story can get messy and convoluted, that's ok.
But I want the beginning, middle and end clearly marked out. I want to see the path.
Well guess what? It isn't. Always clear I mean.

But this business of Mystery intrigues and appeals to me.
So at this tender time, at end of June, I am opening to the possibility.
I am opening to Mystery in these delicious days of summer.
What about you?