Cogitation 22/200 Saturday 1 June 2019 May gave way to June, the sixth month. It’s a marker of passing time. Sometimes I’d like to stop the clock, hit the pause button. Then I’m reminded how futile, even frightening, such a prospect would be.

Standing still happened to the ancient mariner in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Far out to sea, the wind abandoned the Mariner’s sails.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune. (Part V, Stanza 18)

There’s foreboding in that stillness, a foreboding that wants the assurance of a steady wind to propel one forward on the sea of life. What with tornadoes, whirlwinds and other stormy forces of nature–as with society–such normalcy eludes many peoples and communities. Ironically, at first blush, it seems that more chaos than not populates land, sea, and air.

There are things we can do to help calm the storms, but I’ll leave off comment on that and turn to photographs to tell the story of hope, celebrating beauty, calm, and expectancy in the leafy month of June.

Stratford, Ontario

We returned home last Sunday from this world-class festival city, noted for blooms, walking paths, go-to Balzac’s cafe and Rheo Thompson dark chocolate mint smoothies. We’ve been visiting there with Gwen and Dean Preheim-Bartel for more than 30 years.

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On the way home

Scenes from walks in our town

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The environment wants healing

The still life scum on this pond probably comes from animal waste or fertilizer run-off. No sailing on such waters.

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-John