Your Guide to a Magical Summer
Do less and notice more
Hello, Summer Lovers!
Life is moving so fast! I’ve been consumed with getting the illustrations done for my collaboration with author Chad Ellis Boykin. This project has been more of a challenge for me than anticipated, but it’s also been a lot of fun.
Here’s the cover for the zine that will be coming out in the second half of this year:
I’ll be sharing more illustrations and release information in the weeks ahead!
In each post, I share a listicle of things that bring me joy (listicle + bliss = blissicle)
Three magical summer books that I love to reread year after year
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Summerland by Michael Chabon
Daytripper by Fàbio Moon Gabriel Bà
Your Guide to a Magical Summer
Summer is the season of enchantment. There is something mystical about the long, hot days and the chance to relax from the rigid routines of the rest of the year.
But many people fail to experience the full magic of summer. This is especially a problem for Americans, as we tend to pack too much into this short season. We schedule our kids for camps, sports, and classes. We take vacations that are too short and which we schedule every day down to the minute.
One of the few things I retained from my two years of high school French was that many Europeans take the entire month of August off for holiday.
Taking longer blocks of time off work removes the pressure to optimize each day of summer break.
You may not be able to take a month off work this summer, but you can still give yourself a magical summer by doing less and noticing more. There are many magical summer things you can do in your hometown without spending any money. But, you have to be willing to let go of efficiency and optimization and embrace the kismet that only visits when you don’t plan anything and are willing to enjoy doing nothing.
Here are some of my favorite ways to imbue summer with the kind of magic you might have read about in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Get lost
Literally. Go somewhere you’ve never been before and use a map to navigate instead of an app. Ask for directions. Talk to people. You don’t have to go to the wilderness to get lost. Getting lost in your town is much easier and probably safer. Getting lost is the prelude to adventure.
Figuratively. You can get lost by simply doing something new. Instead of waiting for your dreams to come true, take bold action. Head into the unknown and see what happens.
When you always know where you’re going and what’s going to happen next, you don’t leave any room for magic. You also aren’t really living, you’re just following a script someone else wrote for you.
If you want a magical summer, get lost.
Have secret meetings
Some of the most magical moments in life are sparked by being a little mischievous. One of the most enjoyable ways to make mischief is to attend secret meetings.
Take your lover on a surprise outing late at night. Make arrangements to meet up with one friend and agree that neither of you will tell anyone else where you're going, or post about it on social media.
If you’re feeling especially bold, meet under the cover of darkness to clean up a park or to leave handmade art in free little libraries.
Secret encounters open you up to inspiration and adventure.
A magical summer is made up of spontaneous moments of joy and daring, not carefully planned and executed Instagram-worthy snapshots.
Watch the grass grow
Why leave home when there’s an entire hidden world in your front yard? We have forgotten how to do nothing. Our novelty-seeking brains keep us looking down at our phones and avoiding having to be alone with our thoughts.
When you’re constantly trying to drink from the firehose of content delivered via your trusty pocket computer, you miss out on the quiet wonders of your immediate surroundings.
Take an afternoon or evening to sit outside and watch the grass. Channel your inner child and get down on your belly and look at the individual blades of grass.
Spend at least an hour doing nothing but looking at some grass. Once you’ve spent some time doing nothing, not even looking at a screen, the world will seem more alive. You will be shocked at all of the things you notice.
There’s nothing more magical than coming to understand how connected you are to this planet.
Head to a local pond
Water makes up 70% of our planet, and 60% of your body. Looking at bodies of water increases your sense of peace and heals your soul.
You might be lucky enough to live near a lake, river, or the ocean. But a body of water doesn’t have to be magnificent to be magical. A humble pond can provide you with a full day’s worth of wonder.
Behind our library is a small pond that always hosts something worth seeing. Often it’s the resident mallard ducks. But sometimes something more unusual shows up.
One morning, I happened on a fledgling green heron exploring a small corner of the pond. I stopped to watch the small bird and was transfixed by its every move. The work I was at the library to finish no longer felt so pressing.
Head out to one of your local ponds and keep your eyes open. If you are willing to notice the world around you in a given moment, you are guaranteed to witness something wonderful.
Take a road trip to nowhere
What is the smallest, most out-of-the-way place that you could drive to in less than half a day? Go there this summer. You can even drive there and back in the same day.
Go without an agenda and pay attention to what you notice on your trip. You discover magic when you leave your ordinary world and routine behind. A road trip to nowhere gives you the freedom to explore without the pressure of getting your money’s worth. There is no list of sights you must see or things you must do.
Instead, a road trip to nowhere becomes about the journey instead of the destination. What could be more magical than that?
Listen to a different kind of music
We live in a noisy world. But what if you chose to listen to the sounds of your neighborhood differently?
What if instead of hearing noise, you tried to find music in the sounds? One of the most underappreciated abilities of our species is that we can find whatever we are looking for, whether it’s there or not. If you choose to listen for music in the noise, you will find it. And once you find that music, the sounds of your neighborhood will never be the same again.
From my semi-rural home, I can hear the distant freeway. When the weather is just right, we can also hear the horn of a freight train that rolls through a quarry outside of an almost ghost town that was once a thriving lumber town. Instead of hearing this as noise, I now hear the murmur of a distant river carrying wayfarers to distant shores and the plaintive cry of a ghost train looking for a way back home.
What music do you hear out your window?
Read the night sky
One of my favorite summer delights is staying up late with my kids and staring into the night sky. I used to spend hours teaching them the little I knew of astronomy. Now that they are older, we point out constellations and planets to each other. We wonder what the billion-year-old stars we see are like now, understanding that we can only see the distant past in the stars.
If you are looking for a natural psychedelic, transcendental experience, lie on your back in as dark an area as you can, and stare at the sky until it feels like you are falling into the sea of stars. You will begin to sense how vast the universe is and how glorious it is to be a part of the fabric of existence.
This summer could be the most magical summer of your life, so long as you’re willing to give yourself the time and space to notice what you notice.
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Be the weird you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Wild Divinity is 107 pages of haiku comics that take you on a journey through the year, and that also functions as a diary of my spiritual journey as I left the religion I was raised in and began searching for a new way to understand god. Available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover.
This is my kind of summer! My dad used to take the entire month of August off, and we'd spend it at our camp in the woods. No electricity, no telephone. The pace of life slowed waaaaay down. It was wonderful!
Good. Then i'll write my haikus and share them on Substack every few days, starting next week. Btw, you can see my new art pieces the coming week (This time, i've been working on two art pieces instead of one).