At the turn of summer’s tide, there can be quickening of the psychic pulse, panic that it’s now too late, that all the promises of June are still to be fulfilled, that there will never be sufficient time, never be time enough for all our plans and hopes. That awareness now spurs a different chemistry in our brains, one that points to adaptation instead of fulfillment; we batten down our souls, make ready for the test of the harvest, the test of the reaping what we have sown, the challenges of autumn and the cold to come.

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OTES FOR THE FOURTH WEEK OF MIDDLE SUMMER
THE THIRTY-FOURTH WEEK OF THE NATURAL YEAR

ASTRONOMICAL
The crescent Lily Moon waxes throughout the period, entering its second quarter at 5:11 a.m. on July 18. Rising in the morning and setting in the middle of the night, this moon moves overhead in the evenings, opening all the remaining lilies along the 40th Parallel.

Before midnight, the boxy constellation of Libra lies in the southwest (just behind Virgo and Saturn). Due south, the serpentine shape of Scorpio hosts bright Antares, and the teapot-shape of Sagittarius follows in the southeast. In the northeast, autumn’s Great Square is rising, and Cepheus rests east of the North Star. On the western side of Polaris, the Big Dipper stands between Cepheus and Leo.

WANING MIDDLE SUMMER
Following the messages of the moon and stars, blackberries redden, elderberries darken, the first katydids and night crickets sing, the early morning birds become quiet, and restless geese fly back and forth between farm ponds.

Bouncing bets, St. John’s wort, teasel, milkweed, late violet bergamot, gray-headed coneflowers, thin-leaved coneflowers, showy coneflowers, white vervain, wild lettuce, heliopsis, germander, skullcap, great Indian plantain, blue vervain, wingstem, bull thistle, black-eyed Susans and small-flowered agrimony still hold the center of Middle Summer’s wide plateau.

Then the longest days of the year shorten more quickly. Soft violet resurrection lilies begin their season as most other garden lilies disappear. Thistledown unravels more dramatically. Seed pods form on trumpet creepers. Catalpa beans are fat and long. Ragweed heads up as honewort and wood nettle, mallow, and tall meadow rue go to seed. Early cottonwoods are weathering. Patches of bright yellow appear on the weaker ash and buckeye and white mulberry and locust trees.

Black walnut leaves start to fall. Early pods of the touch-me-not burst at the slightest movement. Meadowlarks begin migration. Fogs appear in the hollows before dawn. Grapes and pokeweed berries darken. The opening of white snakeroot, Joe Pye weed, blue dayflowers, and tall coneflowers signals the waning of the Lily Moon.  There is a scent of August in the morning air, the smell of spent flowers and leaves.