Summer Is a Myth

By the sweat of my brow, I know it: summer is a myth.

We celebrate mythologies here, but we also dispel the myths that wrap us in false nostalgia and make us cling to willful misunderstandings of the past.

This culture loves to feed the myth of summer.

Contrary to all evidence, we tend to swallow it whole. For brief, heady moments, we believe we’ll have a chance to slow the pace and really savor the long days. Perhaps this year it really will be like in a Country Time lemonade ad from the 80s.

In reality, summer isn’t an “off” season. Our ancestors certainly weren’t setting down the ploughs and calling in the cow sitters so they could take a week by the seaside. The relentless work required in the summer would feed the community through the long winter when the pace of life would truly ease. No, if the ancients were planning a holiday, it would be after Samhain when the crops were spent and the long wait for the new year was beginning.

Summer and its myth leisurely pleasures is a much more recent phenomenon. Thanks to the industrial revolution and the rise of cities, it was just too hot to stick to the regular routine. Those who were wealthy enough to do so took off for the mountains or the oceans. Eventually, the schools started following such a calendar. Within a century or so, the story of the easy breezy summer was born.

As with so much in modern life, we’re blessed and doomed to live a hybridized existence. We can pack the car and go somewhere delightful (and you can bring along last week’s episode, May the Roads Rise to meet you!). And, yet, most of us are still trying to get all the “usual” work done in the midst of all breaks in the summer routine.

Put simply, the myth of the restful summer is largely a lie. And maybe that’s ok. Maybe it just means our reality is more aligned with the real rhythms of the year. The ancestors weren’t kicking back and unplugging completely. They were working the land and tending the herds, and then they were traveling to the first of the harvest festivals.

In Ireland, that would be the festival of Lughnasadh around the beginning of August.

This Sunday, July 26 at 10 AM ET, we’ll hold our Myth Workers’ Hearth gathering. As ever, this conversation is open to all paid subscribers. We’ll share stories and conversation, exploring the myths that are not modern propaganda and rooting the oldest traditions into our own lives.

In the spirit of Lughnasadh we’ll spend some time with the story of Tailtiu, the goddess whose labors inspired this ancient celebration. Her story always invites us to cover some fascinating, necessary territory related to work and overwork. It’s a chance to talk about how those who do the work are recognized and remembered.

A paid subscription gets you an invitation to all of our community calls, plus access to the Turas series, the deep dive podcasts about the mythology of landscape that I produce every few weeks.

To put it plain, producing a podcast like KnotWork Myth & Storytelling requires an epic amount of time and resources. Your financial support makes it possible for me to keep making KnotWork. Please consider supporting us at the monthly or yearly level.