Summertime Zen

Although I am not partial to extremes of heat, I do love summer for the long daylight hours. Outdoor activities are possible after work and it is a wonderful way to “decompress” after the long day. In the Los Angeles area we rest at latitude 34 north. On June 21, the longest day of the year, we have about 14 ½ hours of daylight and by the end of July the daylight will be diminished to about 14 hours a day.

If you lived in Fairbanks, Alaska at latitude 64 north, then around May 31 each year you would begin to have 24 hours of daylight although technically, the sun would dip below the horizon at about Midnight and rise again at 3:30 am. The time in between would be what the meteorologists call “civil twilight”. This is the time after sunset and before sunrise when the sun is below the horizon but not more than 6° below it. During civil twilight, the sky is still quite bright and only the very brightest stars and satellites can be seen. At 2:00 am in Fairbanks, it would be about as light as it is now in Los Angeles at around 8:15 pm. You might wonder if the good folks of Fairbanks are up all night carousing in the summer, but the working folk have to get up in the morning the same time as they do in any other season so things are fairly quiet during the wee hours of the morning. It is possible, however, to see folks floating, canoeing or kayaking down the Chena River at 9:00 pm when it is still about as light as it would be at 3:00 pm in Los Angeles.

The Brooks Range stretches north of Fairbanks about 700 miles east to west. North of the Brooks Range and latitude 68, the sun does not dip below the horizon in the high summer months of June and July, and it truly is light 24 hours a day. This produces a singular experience that many philosophers would recognize as “Zen time”. For those that travel to the far north, the term “Arctic Time” is more commonly applied.

When you are on Arctic Time, all clock requirements are removed. The weather the land, the wildlife and your own impulses guide action. This is the real secret of being on Arctic Time—it’s a euphemism for being in the present moment and experiencing a stillness that allows you to truly connect with the world around you. This stillness is inside of all of us but the modern world piles so much artifice on top of it that we can’t sense it unless we sink deeply into a very quiet place. The place is in us, but the external environment can take us there just as meditation can do so.

It’s rather tough to stay in the present moment when you have the harrying quality of time nipping at your heels like a sheepdog every day. I mean, what do you listen to when input is exploding on you every moment? Do you listen to a mockingbird or do you listen to CNN blaring from the TV? Do you dial into what the person who is speaking to you is really trying to say or are you thinking about what you need to buy at the store?

You must notice the life around you to be able to respond to it. It seems to be a lot easier to be in the present moment without the distraction of work schedules and specific times when you are supposed to eat or watch a TV show, sleep, clean house or do laundry. Imagine if all your cues for when to do something were removed: no clock time, no daylight or evening to drive behaviors like when to rise and when to sleep...just daylight all the time. Can you imagine this?

I can’t avoid the compartmentalization of time in my life without radical rebellion/reinvention (this workshop lasts three hours; I’ve got to be at work at this time; I have only 50 minutes to speak with this client; I need to have eight hours of sleep beginning at this time). I can, however, be present in the moment within the compartmentalized time buckets and notice or attend to what I’m listening to/watching. Happily, anytime I am immersed in the natural world regardless of the latitude I seem to have a much easier time connecting with that stillness.

Give it a try during these long days of summer light. See if the natural world can help you arrive at a place of stillness where you can experience your connection with the life around you more fully. Take a walk in your local park or try a short hike after work …unless you live in Alaska, of course. Then by all means, take a long hike after work!

The idea of permanence should be surrendered.
- Thich Nhat Han