The seasons’ changes alert those who attend nature’s teaching to several significant balance points. Vernal and autumnal equinoxes hold light and dark in perfect balance. Mid-summer and mid-winter solstices display extremes. Today is the Light Season’s climax: Mid-Summer’s Eve.

This not the beginning of summer by the Celtic calendar. It is mid-summer. The sun is at his highest and most focused on Earth. She is pregnant with ripening life. The days will immediately begin decreasing. Fruit trees that have not been pollinated and set fruit, will fail. Birds not nesting now are in peril of losing their chance. Life is on a pivot point, a brief moment of light dominating darkness. By tomorrow, night will begin edging in with increasing dominance.

If we do as the ancient Celts of Ireland did, recognize that human life is also seasonal, there is reason to reflect on the parallels. Everything is in flux: Stability is an illusion. We can count on one thing: Change is constant. This, too, will pass. Whatever it is.

We are constantly encouraged to be balanced in every particular. Religion, medicine and common sense all preach that too much of anything is not good. I’ll bet somewhere, sometime, someone has died of gobbling too many irresistible ripe cherries. Probably should have spit out the pits.

Bob Dylan told us that those who are not busy living are busy dying. Is it not balance to be aware of both? But, here’s the catch: We can only think of one thing at a time. True, we can switch gears apparently instantaneously, but, still, it’s one thing at a time.

Two terms relate to this puzzle. “Statis” is “a state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces.” Balance is straight across on the teeter totter and is supposed by philosophers to be the ideal condition.

Then there is “stagnation,” which is “to stop developing, growing, progressing, or advancing.” Sounds like death-in-life to me.

What’s the difference? Stasis is dynamic because there are two opposing forces of equal power: the old day-night fluctuation thing again. Looking at nature, we see that the gradual return or retreat of light encourages adaptation to inevitable changes. A dandelion is instructed by increasing light to flower and lure pollinators with a seductive scent. Lessening light signals time to make seeds and hope for an effective breeze to disseminate them on their lovely lighter-than-air balloons to fertile spots. Those that don’t root, compost. Completion.

Stagnation is motionless collapse without energy or hope for change. It is powerless suffering.

Two other forces at work are creativity and entropy as we struggle to understand and find even momentary balance. Whether we create a dream house plan, child or pot of soup, we gather together known details to manifest something new. Despite the effort, sacrifice and false starts often associated, creative expression is the life force — light — in action.

Entropy is the tendency of things to decay and return to their essential elements. Stuff rots. Trees fall spontaneously. The warmth of life is replaced by the chill of death. We associate it with darkness, though darkness has other properties as well.

It is a trick question to ask how we are to shape our lives amidst infinite potentials. Do we choose life, that only and at whatever cost, because to do differently is to choose nothing? Are we to live as if each day is our last with an echoing unknown awaiting? Or are these the same thing, phrased differently?

We face the danger of becoming stagnant, if we trust nothing, then we flounder. Where’s the balance?

It is human consciousness that poses these issues. We generate values, which are the templates for our choices. A template is a pattern such as is used in cutting fabric for an intricate quilt or a piece of sheet metal. Our values direct decisions on every level. Organic or ordinary? Keep the extra miscounted change or return it? Wash hands before returning to work? Save a dime for every dollar spent? Volunteer help when it matters?

Perhaps what is needed is acceptance that we are pulsing, evolving creatures eternally in search of balance. And, sometimes, briefly, attaining it. Conscious living is awareness. That’s probably as good as we can do.

Peg Elliott Mayo writes from the Coast Range. She invites comment at uncommonideas@rivervoices.com and readers to her blog: www.peak.org/~pegmayo/ .