Each year, I tell myself I’ll finally let myself enjoy summer. And this year, I finally do.
I guess you know how this is. Especially in one’s middle years, the weight of accumulated responsibilities feels heavier, so heavy the temptation to work through warm languid days (despite them beckoning you to repose) becomes harder to resist.
Reflecting on the Tarot, the cycle of wands reminds this to us as an inevitable result of passion. Passion sparks the will into action in the ace of wands, leads through all the fortunate winds and the dance of our will’s development throughout the next eight cards, then leads us to the moment of overburden — and promise of respite — in the ten.
Thinking of responsibilities not as obligations or as burdens, but rather as the result of our passions, helps put my own weighty accumulation into better perspective.
I’m a publisher and an editor not because I’m obliged to be, but rather because my passions led me there. Thus, the countless responsibilities which have come along with this work — and the Sisyphean nature of any completed task — are burdens in the way a child on a father’s shoulders is a burden. Sure, it’s heavy, but it’s only too heavy when you forget how your passion led to its creation.

Relationships, likewise. Your passion sparks a connection to someone, and that passion results in the love of friendship or marriage, and that comes with countless responsibilities which are best not shirked. You feel obliged to those you love only when the passion for them feels distant; otherwise, it’s hard to think of such things as obligations at all.
Of course, we cannot only ever rely on passion, and that’s what the cycle of wands reminds us. To believe and act otherwise, to do things only when one “feels like it,” is to instead mistake will for desire, the wands for the cups. But passion is not desire, despite being a conflation heavily encouraged and abused by advertising. We desire peace, and health, and love; we are passionate about creating peace, the conditions of health, the space for love.
Which means passion is also honor and discipline and self-restraint. I’m passionate about my gym work, about getting increasingly stronger, about filling out my body with as much muscle as it will endure. So, I go when I really don’t want to, avoid trash food despite loving the temporary high it grants, and push myself no matter how comfortable I’d really rather be.

And as with my garden — that “burdensome” passion! More mornings than not, I’d much rather not water the greenhouse and my scores of potted plants, nor prune the tomatoes, nor re-pot yet another rare plant my passion led me to grow. Yet I do, not just because I’d loathe to see a die-off of desiccated plants and the wasted effort that would mean. I do so to honor myself as well as them, to make good on the earlier spark of passion which led me to start so gods-damned many of them.
So, it’s not that getting older means accumulating more responsibilities; rather, that getting older means an accumulation of passions. I become more passionate the older I get, and those passions require more work and discipline to honor them.

Still, there is the problem of summer; or, rather, the problem of not letting myself enjoy the summer as much as I’d like. And perhaps passion is the obstacle here, or rather the lack of passion. It’s not that I’ve not yet “allowed” myself its enjoyment, but rather that I’ve not become passionate enough about enjoying it.
But one doesn’t really become passionate about a season, but rather the things done best when it comes. Bright and hot days aren’t the best for being inside, working. They’re better for dreaming up new passions, for feeling the body in all its strength and weakness, and for talking about everything and nothing at all with those you’re most passionate about.

So, too, the long, warm nights are best enjoyed in reverie with others. Dinners with friends taste best in these evenings as the scent of summer blooms from the garden wafts endlessly past your table. Sex, I also find, is my favorite in the summer months — when your body and the body of your lover are most awake to the world and its sensuous call.
Even lifting and the sauna feel better during these days, despite the difficulty I’ve lately had making as much time for it as I’d like, and for the same reasons as for sex. I love the feeling of sweat dripping down my skin after extreme effort, the heat from the body matching the heat of the air. Passion, anyway, is most often described as fire, as are the wands in the tarot, as is the sun warming all of life around me.
I’ve always understood this about the summering, but this year I think I’ve finally let myself enjoy it. Afternoons and evenings with friends, hours of sunlight soaking into ever-darkening skin. Slow mornings with strong coffee among bee-swarmed blossoms, long playful nights with my husband, and endless hours stretching between them during which even the hardest work feels less heavy in the light of remembered passion.
(PS: If you liked this essay, you might really like my book, A People’s Guide to Tarot: A Primer for Everyone).
Thank you for this. My wife frequently reminds me that I want “to do all the things” when I express the frustration or anxiety that arises with all of the activities I’ve set out to do. I’m 57. Yes, as I’ve gotten older my passions have accumulated. And, despite lifting two days a week and swimming 40 laps three times a week followed by the sauna, the physical dimension is becoming more of a limiting factor in following those passions which mostly involve moving, i.e., gardening, hiking, building. Age will require refinement and letting go. Luckily, i have a lot of passions, so maybe in my dotage i will simply go deep in one or two instead of doing “all the things”.
I love this exploration of passion, will and desire. I often reframe discipline as being a disciple to an outcome that I am willing to labor and sacrifice to manifest. I'm a Capricorn rising, so suffering and sacrifice are not a problem for me, haha! But I really like this idea of letting it be the fruit of passion and desire, rather than arduous striving. Thank you!