Last Day of Summer

Summer, counted as the warmest three calendar months of the year, concludes today at the end of August. Others date summer from the Solstice in June till the Equinox in September. North American convention extends it from Victoria Day (Canada) or Memorial Day (U.S.) to Labor Day. Some cultures identify more or fewer seasons, and my nose says ragweed season is upon us. In temperate zones, though, we regularly speak of “the four seasons” as if that number were built into nature.

Why four? We live surrounded by twos and powers of two: hot and cold, right and left, up and down, past and future, ahead and behind. Either/or thinking is quick and efficient. It helped our early ancestors to escape predators by reflex. Modern computers use binary code to solve complex problems.

Useful as it is, treating opposites as mutually exclusive is simplistic and often polarizing. Binary thinking rules out compromise, shades of gray, and bell-shaped curves. It discourages creativity. It blinds us to commonalities and nonlinear possibilities.

Summer and winter are shorthand for the warmest and coldest quarters of the year, or the quarters with most and fewest hours of daylight. We know these terms are only approximations. We don’t expect every tree to change color the same day. Our seasons progress by fits and starts, not always predictable, rarely at the extremes. That’s true of much in nature and human life. As summer turns to fall, let’s delight in the glorious variety of our multi-dimensional world.

Image: Photo by D.R. [sic] on Unsplash.