A Fix for the Shit You Can't Control

+ The best cake I have ever eaten.

It's no picnic being born the day after the 4th of July.

Everyone is hungover and wants nothing to do with another party. That’s if your friends are even in town at all.

I started celebrating on the 4th itself, when people were gathered for a different reason, and I could piggyback off that enthusiasm.

But that, in turn, meant long lines to get into bars, miserable traffic and one drunken fight that led to a break-up on my actual birthday.

This year, I decided to stop celebrating at all unless it involves me flying to a spiritual retreat center for the weekend.

That decision left a void, however.

Now, there was nothing to look forward to for the entire summer season.

Travel?

Sure. But I try to travel year-round.

Being outdoors?

With historical highs of 127 degrees F here in the valley, that's a hard pass.

In the six years I've lived in Palm Desert - where winter is a veritable Garden of Eden - I have developed a hate-hate relationship with summer. I apparently have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, meaning I get super pissed when I can't spend time outside for multiple days in a row. Throw in fire season, and it's a real hootenanny.

The other seasons have holidays, and I love me some holidays. Huge Tupperware boxes in bright colors line the shelves in my garage, each struggling to contain seasonally themed craft projects and home decor.

When I discovered that witches celebrate more holidays than Christians, giving me more occasions to decorate, I signed up immediately.

But despite there being two summer sabbats, AKA pagan holidays, I refused to celebrate them for years because I felt summer was a time with zero cause to be grateful.

But that's where I got it wrong.

There's NEVER no cause to be grateful. And more to the point, why would a season bring me things to celebrate when I did nothing but badmouth it to anyone who would listen?

This year has been positively roaring with abundance. Everywhere I turn, I am blown away by the proof that delusional self-belief pays dividends.

In the midst of watching gratitude beget more to be grateful for, it occurred to me that I was taking the wrong approach to summer. In order for it to be kinder to me, I had to start by being kinder to it.

I'm such a believer that we create our own realities, yet here I’ve been stuck in the narrative that the desert is an awful place to live for 3+ months out of every year.

So I did what I do best and rabbit holed over the summer sabbats.

I learned that Litha is the festival of Midsummer, that Midsummer festivals are rad, and that this is the best time of year for solar magick.

I discovered that Lammas means "loaf mass," and that bread is the centerpiece of the season’s feasts. Then I made a GF version of this fabulous cheesy herb bread to celebrate the fact that ancient peoples had the good sense to devote an entire festival to bread.

The other name for Lammas—Lughnasadh—is a nod to the God Lugh, who is the patron of Jacks-of-all-trades. I’d been searching for a God to work with, so I’m ecstatic that he presented himself to me!

After months of not changing my altar decor, I finally swapped out the white velvet tablecloth (from Imbolc 😱) for a sage-colored satin that I have used in the past for Ostara—but which I love in contrast to the sunflowers and mini corn right now.

Copper taper candles complete the tableau with the Goddess and God represented by tiny brown and gold candles, respectively.

Speaking of mini corn, I ordered 30 of those puppies from a farm on the East Coast, and when they arrived, Hecate and I made a mini Indian corn wreath. And by made, I mean I hot-glued corn to a straw wreath form while Hecate voraciously attacked the corn stalks as if they'd been dipped in catnip.

Oh, and how could I forget the most delicious baked good I have ever made in 46 years of life on this planet?

I made these Strawberry Honey Solstice Cakes first for Litha and then again for Lughnasadh—with peaches the second time around. I may try them with plums in the fall and something else (pears?) in winter.

Strawberry Honey Solstice Cakes

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour
1/4 cup sugar (I omitted)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup oat milk
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 cup honey
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup butter
6 strawberries sliced thin

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350. Line a muffin tin with parchment or silicone muffin cups.

In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the butter, milk, cinnamon, and cinnamon sticks to a simmer. Stir occasionally.

Remove from heat when butter is melted. Add the honey and let the cinnamon sticks steep for 15 minutes. *I forgot to remove from heat the first time - don’t do what I did.*

In a mixing bowl, whisk cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt.

Remove the cinnamon stick from the milk. Add the milk to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Pour half the batter into the muffin cups. Add a few strawberry slices, and top with remaining batter.

Add one more strawberry slice as decoration.

Bake in the oven for 23-27 minutes. When you smell them, they’re done.

Let cool for 15 minutes or longer before removing from the muffin tin.

As a child, my favorite breakfast was cornmeal pancakes. I would top one with jam, one with cinnamon sugar and one with rich, whipped honey. This cake tastes that breakfast.

Thus, with a perfect score on the nostalgia scale, I could eat this cake alone for the rest of my life and be totally content.

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Reflecting on my changed attitude toward summer, it makes sense that this year has been significantly cooler than any in recent memory, and we have had almost no fire season to speak of. (Others have, and my empath heart goes out to them, but we are so far unscathed).

Best yet, I have found ways to stay active. Getting up at 6 a.m. has brought unexpected joys, and mall walking is a surprisingly pleasurable activity. I play a game with myself to try and spot the other people who are also there to get an air-conditioned workout.

All of this has served to remind me that we get to choose how we view our world. If things are perpetually shitty, we must choose differently.

I did.

And the world, according to me, is a much better place to live in now.

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What situation in your life needs a fresh perspective? Drop a reframe in the comments to help you begin to rewrite that story.

If you’re stumped, tell me about it and I’ll give you a hand. 💜

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