Going with the Seasonal Flow

I don’t know if you guys have this experience, but I find my energy level is really connected to the seasons, and end of August, beginning of September is one of the glowiest, dreamiest, slow movin-est times around. I remember feeling like back to school was a weird almost halucinatory dream state, floating through ailes of brightly coloured gear and novelty pens and folders, trying to wrap my brain around using these things for school work. This was always disorienting, and now that I am (woo, yeah!) out of the school system I see that this wasn’t only a feature of the marketing blitz, though that definitely contributed to my feeling of otherworldliness, there’s also just something in the air. Maybe it’s something about our little spot on the planet, and the odd angle of the light here this time of year. The day today is thick with sun and fruit and pollen and leaves all over-ripe but not quite turning yet, and at night we get fat, orange, unlikely harvest moons.

Working the Frosh Shows Indyish put together last week for McGill University gave me a mega dose of back to school crazy, and also a window into a culture I never really experienced myself. We felt a bit like intrepid explorers, trying not to get in the way of the mating rituals of the wild natives, but fascinated by their chants and reckless boozy energetic abandon. We have lots of stories from these few days we spent on campus, and are left with the after effects of a mega dose of the scholarly and wild youth that converge on this very young university town in the fall and ramp up the already electric energy of the place. My favorite moment (as an arts grad myself) was, I beleive, when the orderly engineer corps of frosh in their matching helmets came marching over the ridge, stationned themselves 300 strong overlooking the rugby field strewn with about 1500 Arts Froshies and began chanting “Unemployed! Unemployed! Unemployed” at them. The Arts Frosh in leisurly response but with surprising coordination chanted back “Virgins! Virgins! Virgins!” until the trim and tidy engineers marched away and left them to their beer tents and bouncy castles.

I suggest you keep this all in mind over the next few weeks and allow yourself, if you are an artist, to enjoy the fat glowy nature of the air, the inspiration and yes, sexy youthful promise that hangs in it. For a little while, forget to stress. Remember the reckless delight, and the nervy edge of back to school and let yourself marinate in it. Don’t worry about being unemployed for a while, if you are, and forget the strains of day job if that’s your current lot; just dig what the season delivers and take in as much of this heady time as you can before the winter hits and we all buckle back down to face it. Enough of this juice in your veins and you might just cruise through it productive and creative and cozy.

Neil Young, as usual, probably said it best: