Dry yellow grass, brittle brown twisted leaves prematurely littering the lawns.  Young trees choking into autumn.  Shrinking season of summer.  But still hot.

I can get cranky when my hair frizzes and the grass crinkles beneath my feet.  I don’t want to go outside.  The sun hurts my skin. 

If I don’t tune up each morning, I will play a discordant song.  In this brief moment, before the blue angels scream their thunderous flight across the sky in blazing power, I claim a clear path.  I declare that no matter a dry meadow, fire-threatened forest or barren sand in front of me, I am sweet, soft, nourished and ready to make a slender song to the Divine hidden in the silent birds.