I used to think that when the trees moved
They made the wind
And that the green leaves brought summer.

EPHEMERIS
    The Blackberry Moon, entering its last quarter on August 13 wanes throughout the period, becoming the new Hummingbird Flocking Moon at 5:01 a.m. on August 20. Rising after midnight and setting in the afternoon, this waning, crescent moon will be at its zenith in the late morning.
     In the night sky, the Summer Triangle shifts into the west, following June’s Corona Borealis and Hercules. Delphinus, the Dolphin, is due south. After midnight, autumn’s Pleiades rise up over the northeastern tree line. Orion fills the east before dawn.

JOURNAL
    Among the first observations I remember making about nature when I was very young was that the wind seemed to be caused by the trees moving and that green leaves brought on summer. It soon became apparent to me that the reverse was true. Events in nature were the consequences of causes quite distant from their effects. The wind was the result of planetary and even cosmic forces, and the green leaves of summer were products of a cycle that began in deep winter or even millennia before, offspring of the evolution and migration of plants.
    As I get older and watch myself in nature, however, I see that my first notes about the world were not so childish as I assumed. I find that distant energies are less relevant and less useful than my scientific understanding once led me to believe. In fact, my emotional and spiritual life is more closely tied to appearances than to causes.
    Late Summer in my thoughts and in my feelings is the clear reflection of the things I perceive. The changes in the landscape produce changes in my mind. The Earth’s fluctuating relationship to the sun may technically cause the advent of autumn, but it is the occasional showers of black walnut leaves and the flowering of winterberry in the Stafford Street alley that make the season in my head.
    Very literally, the green trees bring June to my heart. The Osage fruits, full size, fallen in the rain, the stonecrop flowering in the garden, the fogs that form these mornings, the chanting of the katydids and the shrill whistle of the whistling crickets at night, the hickory nuts lying on my South Glen paths, the burs of the panicled tick trefoil stuck to my pants legs, the flowers of blue vervain climbing to the top of their spikes, all these things create a different time, bring on September.