Cycle of Life, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Spring turns to summer, the precise demarcation of the season change lost for me in a haze of books to write, photography in the studio, new Photoshop features to play with, and family matters. Not to mention the oddities of the Pacific weather system in coastal California, where July can easily be chillier with more fog than March or October. In my garden, my beloved poppies are no longer the prime attraction, being swiftly surpassed in sheer gaudiness of coloration by the Dahlias and Echinaceas.

The world moves to a rhythm of its own, and our society has us on a treadmill that only seems to increase in velocity. With four kids, there’s always something to take care of: a doctor to visit, playdate to arrange, or mandatory school affair to show the parental flag at.

But it’s important for me to take the time to sample the tempo of the growing things in my garden. They have a cycle of life that is all their own, as seen in this Papaver Rhoeas photo from early June. The Poppy in the center of the photo is mature, but the one to the upper right has just bloomed, shedding its delicate pod cover onto the petals of the more mature flower. The entire life cycle is compressed into a matter of hours, but seems somehow languid and dreamy if I take the time to observe it closely.