About Sweltering Heat
June 21 - July 5
First Pentad, July 21 - 25
Second Pentad, July 26 - 30
Third Pentad, July 31 - August 5
For those of us adverse to heat in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s no getting around it – it’s sweltering. The sun is so brilliant, and the temperatures so hot that we find ourselves retreating indoors during the heat of the day. Popsicles and salads are our new best friends. Sunhats and sandals become dress code. We avoid turning the oven on, and showering twice daily becomes part of our ritual. Despite all this heat, there’s still something delicious about this time of year – isn’t there? Summer is gold and the natural world is adorned in bold hues as flowers unfurl into a fresh, new flush. We are eating fresh, too. Vegetables and fruits have hit their high-summer stride. We gorge on corn, peaches, and nectarines. Now is a sticky, sweet season. “Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”
Sweltering Heat
Podcast Episode
This balmy episode features special guest Elijah Sobel, discussing swimming holes. Alexis and Kit chill out by finding ways to stay cool during record-breaking hot temperatures, focusing on “cooling things” such as iced tea, goldfish, and “uchimizu.” In Hiro's Corner, a refreshing look at the coolness of far-away twinkling lights.
Click here for poems & songs featured in this episode.
Words of the Season
In the Sky
Coolness of Far Off Twinkling Lights
In the Ground & Water
Eel
Edamame
Melon
Goldfish at Festivals
In Our Lives
Swimming Holes
Summer Refuges
Wetting the Sidewalk to Cool Off (uchimizu)
Summer Naps
Summer Festivals
Summer Plays
Lammas
Iced Tea
Recommended
Reading
Thundercake by Patricia Polacco
The Secret Lives of Bees by Sue Monk is set durng one sweltering South Carolina summer. Runaway Lily discovers a world of bees and matriarchs, and from them learns of the joy and sweetness of life.
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. Although you may connote magic with October, this sweet book takes place during the heat of summer. Amid the fireflies and lilac bushes, something dark and passionate lurks in all of us.
At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies' Pond compiled by editor Margaret Drapple is a collection of essays about women’s experiences in the murky and refreshing waters of the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond, a freshwater swimming pond, in the Hampstead Heath, London. Spanning across the seasons, this freshwater reading is sure to cool you off.