Light to dark and back again, times and news and stories shift. Music for Shifting Times is what we decided to call this series about music. It proved more prescient than we could have known back when we began.

What lights the path, where and how to draw strength when darkness closes in and challenges rise is one of the ideas that is a constant in what I share with you.

A conversation with a friend, a passing exchange with a stranger, a favorite show, an article in a magazine or a headline in a newspaper, a window display, a note in a journal, a sketch on a napkin, a photograph, a book, a song: these are all stories, all ways in which we organize, create, and remember our days, and our lives.

How we tell these stories, to ourselves and to each other, shapes and shares perspectives on the world. In shifting times, especially, it is important to think about such perspectives and ways we share and shape them.

Early summer: it's often a season of weddings, graduations, changes, endings, new beginnings. The shifting world situations which were at the beginnings of this series of articles continue to evolve and present their own challenges, too. With those things in mind, here are five pieces of music to spark and accompany reflection, contemplation, celebration, and hope.

As a kid (and as a teacher), I’d count the days till summer, the days between spring break and Memorial Day weekend and then the onslaught of everything that made that last month of school seem like it simultaneously went as quick as lightning and as slow as molasses. Today, my best friend’s daughter is in the final stretch of her sophomore year, and the middle child is quite literally counting the days till that grand bus ride that will take her to sleep away camp.