Father’s Day and Summer Solstice on the same day!! Well, Father’s Day in the US anyhow.

I’ve been thinking about both today.

Summer Solstice is lovely, all warmth and fresh fruit and vegetables, walking in the evening or the early morning… I love summer.

“…This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath, the door of a vanished house left ajar…” — Margaret Atwood

And Father’s Day brings it’s own ambivalence for me, as so many holidays do – Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, all the Hallmark holidays. I have had my own angsty relationship with my Father, and can mostly forgive him these days. And I also know men who work really hard at being good fathers.

Not perfectly. The concept of a good father has changed so much over the last few generations, it’s hard to figure out what it even looks like. But I know men who try and do pretty well. That’s worth a lot.. .

I was looking for quotes about fathers tonight, and ran across this:

“Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy. Sometimes we don’t feel that way because of the wounds and the scars we carry from the past or because of the uncertainty of the future. It is doubtful that we came to feel undeserving on our own. We were helped to feel unworthy. We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.”
~~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Fathers, Sons, Mothers and Daughters – we are all uniquely imperfect, flawed, scarred, and totally worthy and lovable at the same time.

May the long time sun shine upon you,
all love surround you,
and the pure light within you
guide you on your way.