Acorns From The Path Ii, On the Threshold of Summer

[sarida333]

The Last Week of May: On the Threshold of Summer

Days are longer, the sun is an early riser and late going down. Now at the end of May, afternoons are swelling with heat, fans are only stirring hot air.

Summer in south Texas is not the benign and gentle season the Ancestors yearned for and celebrate with poetry and song. Here, Summer is fierce with heat, relentless of sun, thick with humidity, dangerous for the unaware, and deadly for the desperate immigrant.

June arrives with days reaching ninety degrees, nearing one hundred by Solstice. Lughnasse, at the beginning of August is a Fire Festival, indeed. It will be mid October before we feel the first cool air sweep down from the Canadian
prairie. So we hunker down and retreat to rooms with closed windows and drapes, where air conditioners drone from window sills and humming fans mix the chilled air with the warm.

Today I practice an annual rite, cleaning and preparing the air conditioner filters. It?s a modern rite, not found in our traditions. I didn?t find an incantation for air conditioner filter cleaning in the Carmina Gadelica. So I composed one, borrowing
a phrase from The Catkin Wool #179. You are welcome to use or modify it for your own use.

A/C Filter Incantation

Pluck will I, myself the poly-
monofilament wool. This shield
from dust and detritus.
This cloth, so dense
This cloth, so fulled
This cloth, so thick.

In so by washing, scouring
and rinsing, make ready for
Summer?s coming.
To ease the machine?s labor
To aid the machine?s function
To lessen the power usage.

Lugh, the many skilled, aid
me in my labours.
Brigit, the protectress, shield
our machine from failure.
Christ, of the Trinity, help me
to know the Heat as part of
thy Creation.

I?m hoping all of Y?all are coping well with the onset of Summer. Here?s a bit of Celtic Haiku for the end of Spring.

Cool night air
Sighing on my shoulder,
Last of May.

Slan Y?all,

[Annabelle]

now that's deep