By June, the days are stretching to their fullest. The sun lingered long into evening, casting a golden edge on everything it touched. I found myself walking an old gravel path at dusk, following a line of swaying grasses and buzzing crickets.

The warmth of the day still hung in the air, though night approached. Fireflies began to rise from the undergrowth, blinking slowly like thoughts trying to form.

A child sat by a wooden fence, watching them with open awe. I sat beside her in silence.

After a while, she asked, “Why do they shine?”

I smiled. “Because it’s how they talk to each other.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I think the night listens.”

In that simple exchange, I felt the teaching arise: the light we carry within doesn’t need to be loud or big. Even a soft flicker matters in the great conversation of the world.

I followed the river as it ran bright and full through the May countryside, its banks thick with reeds and wildflowers. Everything shimmered—sunlight on water, dragonflies in mid-air, even the smooth stones beneath the surface.

I sat on a large rock, letting my toes dip into the cold stream. Time faded.

A fisherman further down the bank called out. “You waiting for a catch?”

“No net,” I replied, smiling.

“Best kind,” he said, returning the smile. “The river gives more when you take nothing from it.”

The water moved on, never pausing, never rushing. No force, no struggle – just flow. And in that quiet, so did I.

By mid-May, the trees had become lush with leaves. What once had been bare silhouettes were now complete shelters of green. I wandered into the woods, where the sun filtered through in speckled patterns, dappling the path ahead.

I found an old stone bench beneath a maple and sat, watching how the wind played with the leaves above. There was no urgency, no need for great insight – only the soft hush of wind through branches, and the peace of being.

A gentle voice spoke near me. I hadn’t noticed the old man with a walking stick who had arrived quietly on the other side of the bench.

“The leaves are like thoughts,” he said, gazing upward. “So many, fluttering, overlapping. But they all belong to the same tree. The same root.”

I smiled. “And the trunk?”

“The heart-mind,” he answered.

I closed my eyes then and sat with that truth. Let the thoughts come. Let them go. I would stay rooted.

It had rained in the night. By morning, the sun had returned, gentle but sure, bathing the landscape in golden light. As I walked a narrow trail between fields of tall grass and blooming hawthorn, the scent rose to greet me – rich, loamy, alive.

There is a particular aroma that only comes after rain in spring: earth made soft by water, warmth stirring the root-bound breath of the soil. I paused, eyes closed, and drew it deep into my lungs.

A farmer, passing by with a wheelbarrow of seedlings, gave me a nod. “It’s the smell of things ready to grow,” he said simply.

His words settled in me. I thought of how the Tao nourishes – not only with movement but also stillness, with silence as much as with speech. Just as the earth receives the rain without resistance, so too can we receive the moment – without pushing, without pulling, simply allowing the next thing to grow.