Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics. 

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A season of extravagant light, of luxurious long days, summer is a natural time for doing, for outward activity, loaded with projects to complete, homes to maintain, gardens to cultivate and tend, outdoors celebrations to attend. Hikes to enjoy.

The passing of summer solstice, however, means that we’ve touched the longest day of the year, and from this point on, the days grow shorter and we move toward the long night of winter. Already.

I notice that ebb right around Bozeman’s Sweet Pea Festival in August. Then more dramatically later in the month, when I used to attend Crow Fair, or now when camping. Then dusk startles me by arriving at 9 PM and I reference back to the Fourth of July when its almost 10:30 PM before its dark enough to truly enjoy fireworks.

Solstice reminds us of the cycles of the year, their natural ebb and flow. Take time now to appreciate the dramatic growth in plants and trees all around. Photograph them. Weed, water, and tend your own garden. Don’t hide from rain, but stand out in it (safely away from lightening and flash floods, of course) 

As a BodyTalk practitioner, I’m aware that like the seasons, we are all, always, in some state of shifting balance. We have our own internal rhythms, our own way of attuning ourselves to what is going on around us. When I work with clients, the goal of the session is to establish the best, most dynamic point of balance within their bodymind, allowing their innate healing ability to address specific symptoms and establish lasting patterns of health.

I used to think that being in balance was like having an assay scale balanced with equal weight on both sides. But its really about dynamic balance, the shift and flow between outward and inward; between doing and being; between joy and sorrow. And always, health is about being in tune and awake to the world around us and within.

Celebrate sun!