I was reading Michael Pollan’s great new book In Defense of Food yesterday when I came across this: “Eating in season also tends to diversify your diet - because you can’t buy strawberries or broccoli or potatoes twelve months of the year, you’ll find yourself experimenting with other foods...”

That got me thinking... how about living in season? By that, I mean choosing things that we do and how we do them according to the seasons, rather than trying to force everything to be 72 degree, 30% humidity, perfectly lit perfection all the time?

Think of how many of the rituals of human culture originally derived from the rites of the seasons, and from simple delights gleaned from the time of year. Snuggling in front of a crackling fire late into a clear and brittle night in the dead of winter, or do you remember the sleeping porch with fireflies silently patrolling outside the screen in early June, when it’s just a bit too warm to sleep inside? Or how about going for a quick dip late on a dusty August afternoon? Or maybe letting the dog sleep at your feet on a night that the Hunter’s Moon has brought an unseasonable chill? And whatever happened to Spring Cleaning?

We did all of these things when the seasons mattered, and when each day could be new, bringing something just a bit different from the one before it. But not now. We can no longer tolerate uncertainty, it seems, even as the world around us grows radically uncertain. Is it possible that we have built this Great Grey Way of everyday life to somehow insulate ourselves from the globally cataclysmic stuff we read about, see, and hear? I really don’t know.

But what I do know is that our intolerance of days too warm, too cold, too wet, too dry, too bright, or too dark has robbed us of the seasons, and of both the struggles and celebrations they once contained.

Here’s another thing... not only has our environmental intolerance stolen the delight of the seasons, but it may, perversely, have done something far more malicious. Consider this: the hidden cost of the Great Grey Way is the fact that it requires us to mechanically condition our personal cocoons almost all of the time. So we seal the windows, lower the shades, and power up. And so the machines run... and run... and run...

No big deal, right? Just pay the utility bill and everything is OK. Or is it? It turns out that the Great Grey Way is, above all other things, an energy hog. And the hogging of energy is the prime culprit in wars, depletions, exploitations, global climate change, and most of the other things we seem to be trying to insulate ourselves from when we create the Great Grey Way!

Somehow, this cycle must be broken. Sustainability requires it. And the delight of the seasons is still waiting on the other side.