Dog Days Are Over
I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that summer is coming to an end. The excessive heat and lack of rainfall during July and August have wilted my spirits right along with my garden plants and pasture forage. Many of us refer to this time of year as the dog days of summer. Usually, this period is so hot that it makes people lazy and dogs pant like crazy. Some might even associate it with bad luck because it is filled with drought and unexpected thunderstorms. Oh, what I would give for a thunderstorm! At least the nighttime temperatures are dropping so the mornings are cool and comfortable.
This year the dog days of summer started on July 3 and ended on August 11. I must say those 40 days were brutal here in my part of the world. I watched the grass turn brown and the pond level go down. I noticed the creek went dry and the well level is anything but high. I too fell victim to the energy of those days for I found myself in a perpetual state of stagnation.
The dog days were full of upsets, disappointments, inconveniences, and injuries. Everything from family drama to personal injuries plagued my days. I suffered a weeks-long bout of laryngitis, followed by a pesky case of head lice (no more sleepovers for Hannah), and topped it off with a crippling case of plantar fasciitis. At least, I couldn’t blame my lack of horseback riding solely on my dislike of the weather and dive-bombing horseflies. If it wasn’t for my daughter and her love of swimming, I think those weeks would have been wasted. Fortunately, she motivated me to go to the public pool where I was forced to rest, read, write, and perfect my freestyle.
That is where I was when I started wondering about the dog days of summer. I was sitting at a picnic table under the shade of a maple tree watching Hannah and her friend swim in the deep end when the high-pitched buzzing of the aptly named dog day cicadas filled the air.
I thought about how I had been finding and collecting the dried 4th instar exoskeletons since mid-July. ( I like to stick them to my aloe plants as decorations. My family hasn’t commented yet.) I was even lucky enough to find one attached to a piece of line-dried laundry and unknowingly carried in the newly molted winged adult with the basket of clothes. Imagine my surprise when I dumped everything onto my bed and discovered the massive insect amongst the pile. I quickly scooped it up and examined the still flattened wings, the deep verdant green body, and beady black eyes. I was torn between getting out my camera and macro lens and setting him free. I chose the latter. I went out onto the deck and placed him on the sun-soaked railing. Within seconds the stunned insect spread his wings and flew off, no doubt to spend his remaining weeks in the tree tops calling for females by vibrating his tymbal.
https://songsofinsects.com/cicadas/dog-day-cicada
I thought about how my summer did not live up to my expectations. My summers rarely do because my plans never include illness, injury, or inconvenience. However, I did gather some new information like how the dog days of summer got their name. It pleased me to learn that ancient Greeks named the punishingly hot days after Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major. During this period, in the northern hemisphere, Sirius rises and sets with the Sun. The Greeks believed that the heat from the two stars combine to make these days the hottest of the year. Over the centuries the phrase stuck but the origin became unknown to many, so people came up with their explanations. Makes sense to me since my dog gets both lazy and crazy during this part of summer.
My long afternoon at the pool gave me ample opportunity to ponder the significance of the dog days and the cicadas they awakened. I’ve always been a lover of those insects and their incessant racket, but this summer I found myself relating to them. You see, just as they were finding their “voices” I had lost mine. I couldn’t speak above a whisper for nearly 2 weeks and I knew it had less to do with irritation or infection and more to do with stress. The last time I had it was in 2019 after my father died and I was busy settling his affairs. My trigger was the kind of stress that is caused by frustration and disappointment brought on by certain individuals in my life. So when I read, The Cicada Spirit Animal hums to you about the past, metamorphosis, and changes yet to come. It is time for shaking off the restrictions you’ve put on yourself (or imposed by others). Cicada signals shedding your old skin so you can stretch in the way you express yourself. The process will seem a little uncomfortable at first. Examining elements of your past, so you understand how they hold you back isn’t easy and requires a lot of honesty. Once you release old ways like the Cicada, however, you re-emerge into life and blossom, I realized that maybe now is the time to let go of the people and parts of my life that don’t serve me and to both welcome and facilitate change.
The idea of change comes just as the seasons are starting to shift. The days are getting shorter. The nights are getting cooler. The animals are feeling frisky. Some leaves are changing color.
The other evening I opened the gate to give the horses access to the upper pastures. It was such a pleasure to see them running and bucking. They didn’t seem to mind that there wasn’t much grass to eat. They were just happy to be free from the summer’s oppressive heat. As I watched them gallop up the hill I couldn’t resist reciting the chorus from the popular Florence + the Machine song, Dog Days are Over:
The dog days are over.
The dog days are done.
The horses are coming.
So you better run.
My days of stagnation are over too. Both my foot and resolve are getting stronger. I’m looking forward to enjoying the fairer weather, lacing up my boots, and allowing both my imagination and body to run wild. I’m also going to do my best to not be disappointed if my plans go awry and I’ll try to remember that just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, cicadas live for many years below the surface before they can emerge, transform, and find their voices. After all, all good things come in due time.
As always, thank you for wondering along with me. If the dog days of summer were hard on you too, I hope reading this gave you comfort just as writing it did for me. And remember, life is wonderful when you just take the time to wonder about it.
