Recipe for Summer: What do you want and need in the light season?

PLUS ✨How to join SALT+SKY (a beautiful new one-day virtual retreat) for FREE✨

With notebooks, freedom, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?

- Me, paraphrasing Oscar Wilde

As I write this, the long grass outside my window is bowing reverently in the wind, raindrops are meandering down the pane, and I have just put the heating on for the first time in a long while. It’s June in England, the sky is overcast and dull, and the kettle is on for the third time this morning.

It’s a far cry from the weather just a couple of days ago, which had me in the garden with my snips out, deadheading roses in the sunshine. We inherited a tiny unruly rose garden with our little cottage, and at this moment in the year there are hundreds of flowers in it – some in bud, some in full bloom, some fading, coffee-edged and papery, or petal-less, just the star remaining where the flower used to be. This morning Mr K sent me a photo of a bush so heavy with blooms and raindrops it had nearly brought down a fence. Beauty, dripping.

On brighter days I take my snips to the leftovers one at a time, noticing a familiar twinge of sorrow with each cut, swiftly followed by delight as the surrounding buds seem to respond immediately to the extra light.

I deadhead a few each day at this time of year, making room for newness. It has become a practice of patience (a virtue I am working on), but also of mind cleansing - whatever I carry into the garden has usually been released by the time my bucket is full.

Back in late December, deep in the winter darkness, when these flowers were but a dream, I did an oracle card reading for the year and shared it here. Actually I did two. I pulled two sets of twelve cards (one for each month) to give two readings - one for LIFE, and another twelve to represent WRITING/CREATIVITY.

On June 1, I went back to the reading, to see what the cards were offering for the coming summer. In case you too are curious, here’s what they said for JUNE | JULY | AUGUST…

• THE LIFE READING - Nourishment | Sunshine | Gift

• THE WRITING/CREATIVITY READING - Freedom | Flow | Letting go

As I read them aloud together they felt like some kind of poem. And as I did so, this simple yet probing question bubbled up:

What kind of a summer do you want and need this year?

Huh.

The thing is I have been asking myself this question at Christmas for many years. Indeed, the question ‘What kind of a holiday season do you want and need this year?’ has been something of a lantern in the dark season for me and many others. And yet it took until that moment to realise that we can ask ourselves this question in any season, and in doing so, it can gently guide us towards focus, and an intention. Of course we have no idea what kind of summer will unfold – the weather being a case in point – but we can take a moment now, at the very beginning of this season, and hope.

I made some notes in response to the question in my journal, and was curious to see that my responses were all, in one way or another, light-filled, if somewhat predictable perhaps: A breath of fresh air. Sunshine. Space. Laughter. Picnics. Flowers. The sea. So simple, and yet often summers don’t end up feeling like that. Perhaps this one will be different.

I surprised myself with the energy of my thoughts - Sure I’d love some long, lazy days but I’m also open to days of physical effort – renovating, gardening, cooking, creating things, eliminating things, running round having fun. That’s the vibe I’m getting.

How about you, I wonder? What kind of a summer do you want and need this year? I’d love to know.

I must confess that this year it has taken me until June to put away my winter wardrobe. (Is that terrible?) I’m not sure why. The changeable weather, my love of cosy, my always-cold feet, perhaps. Or maybe I was trying to slow the year down by clinging to my jeans and boots, knowing that by the time the Solstice arrives, and my flipflops are out, my eldest will have but a few weeks left of primary school. I’m still not quite ready for that thought, and will save it for another day.

But urged on by the need to pack for an upcoming trip to humid Japan in the rainy season (yay!) I finally put away my winter things, and hauled my summer wear down from the attic. I don’t buy many clothes, and those I do, I wear year in, year out. But there is always a sense of newness when I unfold the sea blues, the mint greens and the coral pinks, take out a few bits of costume jewellery and drape summer across the hangers. As I buttoned up linen shirts and fold baggy trousers, seize the waistbands of long skirts with plastic clips, take out my beloved dungarees which never fail to prompt Mr K to call me ‘Artiste’ in his best French accent, and wonder why I ever bought that particular bikini, it dawned on me that I very much like the sound of this kind of summer, and I am preparing for it by making space, moving things around, blocking out time for things as yet unknown.

I am taking the summer off from teaching classes, to allow me to fully return to studentship within my own creative work. I hope to write more essays, and dive deep into the company of my private writing community SoulCircle (for which I am planning a light-filled summer of inspiration - see below for details), but besides those few things it’s wide open.

How about you? What might you be able to change, postpone, eliminate or reformat to give you more time to create the kind of summer you want and need this year? Perhaps today is a good day for such a question.

Beth Xx

Join me for a summer of inspiration - FREE when you join SoulCircle!

We are coming up to the one year anniversary of my beautiful private writing community SoulCircle, and we are celebrating with some wonderful offerings which you can enjoy for FREE when you take out an annual subscription today (at a lovely discount).

Once you are an annual member, you will get all of this at no extra cost:

• Access to SALT + SKY, a brand new virtual day retreat worth £89, designed to help you go deep on a particular writing project. This beautiful experience will take place on July 13, in celebration of one year of SoulCircle, and will include writing invitations, meditation, yoga and a sound bath (offered by guest teachers) - this alone is worth more than the cost of an annual subscription to SoulCircle. And if you can’t join us on July 13 don’t worry, you’ll be able to access everything afterwards and enjoy it in your own time, whatever time zone you are in.

  

• Access to SUMMER OF SUBSTACK, a leisurely stroll through a summer of Substack essay writing, together (Late July-August) with lots of opportunities to get more visibility for your own writing - and if you aren’t interested in writing on Substack you’ll still get a ton of inspiration for writing elsewhere

• Plus, coming soon: Complimentary access to THE SOUL CIRCLE SESSIONS, a series of guest workshops from extraordinary teachers - including some of the writers who have most significantly influenced my own work (starting in the autumn and running throughout 2026 - this deeply inspiring series is is not to be missed!)

This is all in addition to everything covered with your membership, offering extraordinary value and wonderful companionship, including:

• Bi-weekly Live Writing Circles, every 6-7 weeks throughout the year plus ALL the archives of our replays - our EARLY SUMMER Live Writing Circle takes place on June 13, and our LATE SUMMER Live Writing Circle will take place on July 13 as part of the SALT + SKY retreat.

• My Weekly Journal Notes - Gentle writing invitations in your inbox every Monday all year round (Note: These will be replaced with Summer of Substack between mid-July-late August)

• Quarterly Live Q&A

• Year-round access to our private chat space for friendly encouragement and a chance to share your work

Over a year this SoulCircle content is worth hundreds of pounds, but I am able to offer this at an extraordinarily low rate because every penny of your SoulCircle subscription is channeled back into creating resources to support writers all over the world. By choosing to become part of this community you are not only committing to your own writing journey, you are making a huge difference to other writers. That will come back to you in spades.

I can’t wait to welcome you in. Join here today.

Beth Xx

Photos: Holly Bobbins