☁️The Colors of Cloudy Days 🌫️
Sometimes, I see how much of a spoiled brat I am. What I am about to say falls squarely in that category, and I shall say it anyway. The Californian summers seem to drag on. It feels especially so at the end of August. They are warm, bright, sunny, but not too hot.
📚The school’s summer vacations are over. But the summers aren’t.
🩴The summer clothing is supposed to be winding down, but I can never bear to look at anything other than some flowy cotton with any fondness.
🌷The summer flowers are still blooming on every shrub, plant, tree and pathway.
While I mostly enjoy this halcyon time of the year, I also wouldn’t mind a few days of summer rain. Or even some cloudy skies.
That was probably why I had not the heart to come in this particularly overcast morning. The clouds made an excellent background. The flowers that we see on our walks everyday were still there – but they looked more fresh, more vibrant. The angel’s trumpet flowers that we admire everyday looked more angelic than usual. The chamomiles looked more soothing – their purples against the sombre greys. As your eyes zoomed to the skies, the jacaranda tree’s flowers attracted your eyes to their purples too. Really these color combinations look marvelous against the grey.
Shouldn’t cloudy days be called halcyon days? I mused.
Are Halcyon Days Myths?
I came and idled with ‘halcyon days’ floating in and out of my consciousness. What I stumbled upon made it so.
Halcyon itself referred to a species of bird that nested in the oceans during the winter solstice and were supposed to charm the wind and the waves into a calm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halcyon_(genus) the halcyon bird owes its naming to a Greek myth involving the wrath of the Greek Gods, Alcyone & Ceyx.
Somehow Alycone and Ceyx managed to anger the mighty Zeus (apparently, they lovingly called each other Zeus & Hera. Really! It must be exhausting to have such fragile egos and live on forever. An endless cycle of being offended, and recouping from it). So, Zeus , in his rage, cursed them separately turning them into birds – there are many versions of the myths of course. Some say Alcyone became a kingfisher with a mournful cry trying to find peace in the seas. The gods (the other ones) took pity on her and granted her a period of calm as she prepared her nest and gave birth to the young. So, these days during the winter solstice were called the Halycon Days. Alycone’s father, the god of the winds, gave her mild breezes, calm oceans and tried to bring her peace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcyone_and_Ceyx
What became of Ceyx? He either became a kingfisher too or a sea tern.
Of course, kingfishers do not live by the sea – so they could be referring to other birds, and over time came to be associated with these beautiful birds.
After a start to the day in which I was feeling less than inspired – the cloudy days, and the halcyon myths managed to transform it. I have always liked the phrase, ‘halcyon days’. But now? I love it.
Nourish-n-Cherish 