Summer is coming

Here in New Jersey, where I live, we’ve reached the end of the school year. Isn’t it funny how, no matter how old you get, something about school-year scheduling never really goes away?

We look forward to summer as a time of relaxation and expansion. Which—let’s face it—we would probably do anyway even if those of us who live in the United States hadn’t gotten used to the “summers off” situation when we were younger. Of course, if you are a teacher or student right now, this may still be an actual thing for you.

You can feel those summer vibes starting. The desire to get outside more. To add more relaxation in, whether it is time in a hammock, time on your porch or patio, or time at a beach or pool. All of it happening right on schedule, since summer is set to start this Saturday, June 20th, when the solstice arrives at 5:45 p.m. (EDT).

Of course, when I think about summer coming, I think of the song “Sumer is icumen in”, which is the oldest piece of secular music in the English language (Olde English, but still). Because I was a music major in college, and because I am (still) a big nerd. If you’d like to listen to it, I highly recommend The Hilliard Ensemble’s version on YouTube.

As a person who is immune-suppressed due to the treatment I get for my rheumatoid arthritis, I continue to take the threat of COVID19 quite seriously. I know that Morris and I don’t really feel that traveling or spending time with crowds of people is a good idea just yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still observe and welcome summer. We have our beach passes and have already taken our first walk on the shore, and I’ve been gardening (as I mentioned in this post) and enjoying time spent outdoors on daily walks with my sweetheart.

One of the other ways I welcome summer is with an energy clearing inside our home. We open the windows and doors to allow fresh air in, turn up some happy tunes, turn on all the lights (even in the daytime), and then we perform our energy-clearing tasks. Those include lighting incense or burning white sage or palo santo wood so that the smoke cleanses the air inside our space, plus deliberately getting “stuck” qi energy to move by either clapping our hands into the corners of our rooms or ringing Tingsha bells—the sound dispels any energetic dust bunnies and stimulates energy movement and flow.

I tend to do energy clearing or cleansing any time I feel the vibe in our house becoming heavy, or feel as if I’m stuck. I also do it after one of us has been ill, as a way of boosting healthy energy flow inside the house again. I also do it after decluttering the space, or if we’ve had a guest who brought a lot of negativity with them. And I recommend it for clearing out negative energy after an argument, or if your house has been closed up for a while (especially if you were not home).

If you are interested in clearing the energy in your own space, whether it’s to welcome in summer or just to raise your own vibe, I have presents for you: a single-page PDF download that gives you directions on how to clear the energy in your space, and a four-page booklet I created with more detail. Click on the images below to download your copies!