Summer Gatherings and Outings

It’s in a spirit of deep gratitude that I remember this past summer of 2026 – the summer I became a U.S. citizen – and the many gatherings and outings I shared during it with friends, comrades, and colleagues! . . . Oh, and I didn’t realize until I put this post together, just how much boating I did this summer – thanks to my friends Dave and Deb.

See also the previous Wild Reed Summer 2026 posts:
• A Solstice Eve Walk Through the Neighborhood
• Memes of the Times – June 25, 2026
• Welcome to the U.S.A. . . . Officially
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Being One With the Beloved, the Source of All Things
• June Vignettes
• On July 4th, Two Very Different Marches
• I Am One With the Beloved
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• “Hazardous for Everyone”
• Chase T. M. Anderson: “‘Queer’ Has Become One of the Most Elegant and Powerful Words I Use to Describe Myself”
• Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message
• A Precise Metaphysical Claim
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Living From the Heart
• Awakenings
• July Vignettes
• Why the American Political Establishment Is Panicking
• “Like a Stream Running Into the Ocean”
• No Plausible Justification
• MPR’s Major (But Unsurprising) Failure
• Photo of the Day – August 13, 2026
• A Mesmerizing Performance
• “Rest in Peace, Dear Prophet Dolly”
• Genevieve Fraser: Quote of the Day – August 26, 2026
• Four Political Commentaries Worth Viewing
• Spider-Man in Minneapolis
• Memes of the Times – August 29, 2026
• The Crowned Spirit of the Wild
• August Vignettes
• “Complex, Brilliant, Revolutionary”: Remembering Wendell Berry, 1934-2026
• The Threshold Month of September
• Progressive Perspectives on the Legacy of Gloria Steinem, 1934-2026
• Photo of the Day – September 4, 2026
• Claiming Self-Defense, Minneapolis Spider-Man Pleads Not Guilty
• Finding Our Center-Deep
• Stay Supple, Like a Reed
• 25 Years of the “Exact Wrong Response to 9/11”
• September Blooms
• Caitlin Johnstone on the Need to Cultivate Integrity – As Both an Individual and a Society
• What Integrity Looks Like
• Ed Sheeran Chooses the Side of the Oppressor
• Exposing the Apocalyptic Thinking of Today’s U.S. Far Right
• Memes of the Times – September 16, 2026
• Photo of the Day – September 20, 2026
• Will the “Astonishing” Andrew Scott Be the First Gay Man to Win the Best Actor Oscar?
• A Sacred Threshold

September Blooms

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Late Summer Blooms (2025)
• Late Summer Blooms (2016)
• September Garden
• September Vignettes – 2025 | 2024 | 2023
• Summer’s End
• Summer’s Parting Gift
• First Signs of “By Far the Most Paradoxical” Season

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

The “Threshold Month” of September

September never arrives all at once. It comes quietly through cooler mornings, earlier sunsets, ripening berries and the first leaves beginning to turn. Summer may still be holding the afternoons, but something in the air has changed. The light is softer. The shadows are longer. The evenings are asking us to come home.

This is a threshold month, neither entirely summer nor fully autumn. It gives us time to notice what is fading, gather what we want to keep and prepare for the darker months ahead. You may feel drawn to clean your altar, light candles earlier, return to neglected books or make your home feel warmer and safer. Follow that pull. Your body often recognises the changing season before the calendar does.

September is standing with the door open. What are you ready to carry through?

– Hex and Shadow Chronicles
via Facebook
September 1, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Crowned Spirit of the Wild
• First Signs of “By Far the Most Paradoxical” Season
• Late Summer Blooms – 2025 | 2016
• Summer’s End – 2024 | 2021
• Threshold Musings

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

The Crowned Spirit of the Wild

As summer weakens and the forest turns towards autumn, the stag becomes the crowned spirit of the wild. His antlers resemble bare branches holding the final light of the year, while their yearly shedding reflects the ancient rhythm of loss, renewal and returning strength.

In European folklore, the stag belonged to thresholds. He could lead hunters away from familiar paths, appear before encounters with the Otherworld and run through the darkness alongside the Wild Hunt. He represented sovereignty that could not be granted by human hands: instinctive, untamed and rooted in the land.

The stag does not mourn the fading sun. He carries it between his antlers, guiding its fire into the darker half of the year.

– Hex and Shadow Chronicles
via Facebook
August 18, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Beloved and Antlered
• Cernunnos
• Integrating Cernunnos, “Archetype of Sensuality and the Instinctual World”
• Cernunnos in Autumn Light
• Cernunnos and Pan: “Witch-Fathers of the Wild”
• The Devil We (Think We) Know
• Ed Simon on Why We Need a Pagan Theology
• Phillip Clark on the Magi as Archetypes of “Witchy Faith”
• A Day to Celebrate the Survival of the Old Ways
• At Hallowtide, Pagan Thoughts on Restoring Our World and Our Souls
• The Pagan Roots of All Saints Day
• "A Dark Timelessness and Stillness Surrounds Her Wild Abandonment”
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• The Mysticism of Trees
• Mistwalking
• Holy Encounters Where Two Worlds Meet
• The Prayer Tree
• The “People Between”
• The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
• Late Summer Blooms (2025)
• Summer’s End (2024)
• Summer Vignettes (2022)
• Summer’s End (2021)
• Late Summer Blooms (2016)
• Summer’s Parting Gift
• Eternal Summer

Image 1: Artist unknown.
Image 2: Michael J. Bayly.

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Photo of the Day – August 9, 2025
• Eternal Summer
• Photo of the Day – August 17, 2023
• Summer Vignettes (2022)
• Summer Blooms (2021)
• Summer Garden (2021)
• Photo of the Day – August 23, 2020
• Summer Blooms (2015)
• Summer Blooms (2014)
• In Summer Light
• Photo of the Day – August 11, 2014
• Summer Blooms (2009)

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

July Vignettes

See also the previous Wild Reed July 2026 posts:
• Tad Stoermer: Disillusioned With America? That’s Actually a Good Thing
• Matthew Remski on Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s “Really Superficial” Understanding of How to Fight Fascism
• Jeff Waldorf: Quote of the Day – July 3, 2026
• On July 4th, Two Very Different Marches
• Tommy J. Housman on Reactions to the “Defining Image” of Trump’s America
Stacey Patton: Quote of the Day – July 7, 2026
• I Am One With the Beloved
• “The World Is Watching”: Salazar Felicita on the Killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• “Hazardous for Everyone”
• Remembering the Romanovs
• The Serpent: Not the Enemy of Ascension But Its Guardian
• Chase T. M. Anderson: “‘Queer’ Has Become One of the Most Elegant and Powerful Words I Use to Describe Myself”
• Inayat Khan and the Sufi Message
• A Precise Metaphysical Claim
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• A Classic Duet Turns 50
• Mariana Hernandez Debunks Mike Johnson’s Fear-Mongering Graphic
• Living From the Heart
• Awakenings

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• July Vignettes (2025)
• July Vignettes (2024)
• July Vignettes (2023)
• The Summer of My Wildebeest-of-a-Bike
• A Summer Sunset Psalm
• The Dance of a Summer Day
• Summer Vignettes (2022)
• On This Summer Solstice, A Proclamation of the Power of Fire
• Celebrating the Summer Solstice
• O Breath of Summer
• Summer Blooms
• Eternal Summer

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

June Vignettes

See also the previous Wild Reed June 2026 posts:
• Carlos LeMar Dixon: Without Revolutionary Action, We’re Just “Entertaining the Kings”
• Kadeem
• Kshama Sawant on the Real Reason for Jacobin Magazine’s “Hatchet Job” on Chris Smalls
• Adam Bates: Quote of the Day – June 9, 2026
• “This Is Not a Moment to Be Silent”
• Pope Leo XIV: Quote of the Day – June 11, 2026
• Aligning With the Divine
• Chris Smalls’ “Unforgivable Sin”: Connecting the Warehouse to the Empire
• Dalloway Day
• Christopher Schoenherr on Why America Couldn’t Hear Marianne Williamson
• Christopher Schoenherr on Marianne Williamson’s Politics of Love
• Photo of the Day – June 16, 2026
• Eric Karl Anderson on the Secret Story Behind Mrs Dalloway
• Dorothy Lennon on What We Won’t Hear Today at the Opening of the Obama Presidential Library
• “The Fascist Fist Is Tightening Because It Knows That It Is Losing Its Grasp on Us”
• Remembering How the Freedom of Juneteenth “Did Not Arrive as a Friendly Announcement”
• Jacob Crosse: “The Obama Presidential Center Is a Monument to Hypocrisy”
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• A Solstice Eve Walk Through the Neighborhood
• The Fatherly Heart
• The Wild Man
• Memes of the Times
• A Course in Miracles: A Gift of Peace
• Being One With the Beloved, the Source of All Things
• Welcome to the U.S.A. . . . Officially
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t
• Queer Perspectives on an Anti-Queer Op-Ed
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• June Vignettes (2025)
• June Vignettes (2023)
• The Summer of My Wildebeest-of-a-Bike
• A Summer Sunset Psalm
• The Dance of a Summer Day
• Summer Vignettes (2022)
• On This Summer Solstice, A Proclamation of the Power of Fire
• Celebrating the Summer Solstice
• O Breath of Summer
• Summer Blooms
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Eternal Summer

Images: Michael J. Bayly.