The philosopher and psychologist Carl Jung used the word, “synchronicity” to describe "temporally coincident occurrences" that may be related by their meaning. In the context of nature, the days themselves are formed and defined from “temporally coincident occurrences,” that is, events happening at the same time, events that reveal to the very blossom and tadpole the meaning of space and time. Things happen together: that is what makes the world make sense.
Things like: The blooming of purple ironweed, the ripening of the first blackberries, the beginning of the passage of monarch butterflies, the start of late-summer’s night cricket song, the flocking of starlings and hummingbirds, the rasping calls of the katydids at night, and elderberries darkening for wine. The gilding of ragweed pollen, the falling of the first black walnut leaves.
Honeysuckle berries and wild cherries ripen, and hickory nuts and black walnuts drop into the undergrowth.
The season’s second-last wave of wildflowers – the Joe Pye weed, monkey flower, tall coneflower, white snakeroot, jumpseed, virgin’s bower, false boneset, and Japanese knotweed – bloom in the open fields and along the fence rows.
Golden and purple coneflowers, and red, pink and violet phlox still rule the gardens. Orange-and-gold-flowered trumpet vines still curl through trellises. Ephemeral resurrection lilies briefly replace the day lilies, the Asiatic lilies and the Oriental lilies. Mums and stonecrop start to color the dooryards.
This is the way meaning works. Things happen together: that is what makes the world make sense.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the sixth week of Deep Summer. In the meantime, look and see that the world does make sense, after all.
