June is a generous month.
Dawns arrive early, cool and damp. Stepping outside, we find lawns and nearby meadows sparkling with jewels of dew.
A pale, silken veil of thin mist is apt to hover briefly above ponds and streams, shifting slowly like a restless spirit, ethereal, mysterious.
Birds simply can’t wait to greet the new day with joyous songs. They begin stirring and singing well before the rising sun has found its way above the eastern horizon. A few tentative notes at first, quick snatches of melodies—sleepy instrumentalists practicing their song’s tricky bits as they tune up for their daylong performances.
Invariably, this avian orchestra’s leader will be a robin. In fact, robins may be the feathered alarm clocks that prod other birds awake! “Get up you sleepy heads, it’s showtime!”
Robins start singing long before sun-up, and often long before there’s any visible hint or intimation that darkness might be on the wane.
Moreover, maestro robin eschews practice, nor does he bother with a partial run-through. Instead, he opens straightaway into his full song. A loud, cheery, swinging tune befitting a dapper-dressed member of the dulcet thrush family.
One fact is certain, no dawn prelude would be complete without the loud and boisterous song of ol’ robin red-breast!
June’s mornings were made for birdsong! And the month’s bountiful days seem to unfold deliberately as if each were trying to outdo the one before.
Streams bounce merrily along, sassy and shimmering, charged with energy, burbling with delight.
The banks along these winding waterways, as well as the grassy berms bordering rural roads, are decorated with myriad wildflowers. June’s warm air is characteristically laced with a fragrant mix of these diverse, perfumy blooms.
Most trees are now in full leaf, and woodlands are a verdant, thriving green. Fields, too, are luxuriant, emerald grass high and rippling in the slightest breeze.
June’s entire landscape appears splendidly dressed, lush, youthful, and filled with a sense of growth and energy, while hinting at a distant maturity that will one day come, promises yet to fulfill.
Even the sky regularly paints a heady sweep of crisp and pure cerulean blue.
The effect of all this seasonal generosity can be confusing. You don’t know whether to wade a creek for smallmouth bass, or laze on some grassy hillock and watch clouds drift along overhead.
June likely gets its name from Juno, wife of Jupiter and mother of Mars, and the ancient Roman goddess of marriage and childbirth. Alternately, it may have derived from her daughter, Juventas, goddess of youth and rejuvenation.
Scholars are divided on the matter.
On the old Roman calendar, which preceded both the Gregorian and Julian calendars, Mensis Iunius, or Junius, was the year’s fourth month, following mensis Maius (May).
The early Celts, my distant ancestors, attuned their lives to nature and the seasonal passage. For them, the year was circular, not linear.
My Irish ancestors knew June as “an Meitheamh,” which refers to its middle-of-summer location in their way of seasonal reckoning. While they not only recognized the solstices and equinoxes, the great quarter events on the annual cycle, they also marked the year’s cross-quarter points that fell midway between each quarter division of solstice and equinox. (Think of a pie cut into four equal slices; now divide each slice in half.)
Unlike our modern way of beginning seasons at the quarter points of solstices and equinoxes, the Celts began their seasonal beginnings at these cross-quarter divisions.
Summer was Beltane, and it commenced at that cross-quarter day marking the sun’s halfway point between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice.
The summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, thus came on what was literally considered the mid-point day of summer. Hence the reference to June being the “middle month.”
That was the time of year when Shakespeare’s famous comedy play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, would have taken place.
Many countries worldwide still adhere to the old ways, and continue to recognize and celebrate this ancient seasonal passage point of Midsummer, treating it as either a full holiday or a less formal traditional event.
Ancient folks closely tracked the sun’s pathway. They understood its comings and goings. Keep in mind that with June’s passing solstice, the pendulum reverses.
Midsummer was when the countdown began. Daylight would begin to dwindle. Each successive day would deliver a smidgin less daylight. A steady, incremental loss that continued until another solstice in late December, when the process again reversed.
By contrast, employing our contemporary method of astronomical-based seasonal reckoning, we’d put summer’s middle day on August 6.
This year’s solstice arrives in late afternoon on June 20. A point you can view as merely summer’s official start or a good reason to build a bonfire, sit up late, and celebrate! Your choice, your party.
Regardless, June is a generous month, summery in feel, even if not all its days are sanctioned as true summer.
Either way, they look and feel delightful, and they’re still ours to enjoy!
Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].
