The Golden Season

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

“Autumn carries more gold
In its pocket than all the other seasons.” 

– Jim Bishop

The landscape around my home is currently awash in this warming hue. Farm fields boast shades from straw to ochre, amber to russet. Whether in the kitchen, sewing room, or other inside spaces, flavors, textures and rich colors nourish my soul and stoke my creative fire as days shorten and temperatures decline. Luxurious rays of progressively earlier sunsets seep indoors and coax us to windows, bathing everything in gilded bliss. To say I adore this season is an understatement, as no other season tempts the entirety of my senses quite like fall. 

“Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
 fluttering from the autumn tree.”

Emily Bronte

September plays cat-and-mouse as I search for early glimpses of yellow with the first scent of dried foliage. My heart warms in time-lapsed exposure with each coy sighting. October erupts into a sea of gold punctuated with shots of red and orange, and I am unabashedly in love. Squirrels dart and nuts fall, all languishing in lush grass beginning to fade at the tips. 

Leaves fall at their leisure like lilting pendulums, their sway giving in to a coquettish twirl prior to landing. They toy with gravity unlike their heavier nutmeat cousins, whose urgent trajectories serve up a buffet for those ready to stash.  

I never tire watching the dances of various bracts and delight in the confetti Mother Nature strews about. Their crunch underfoot and intoxicating perfume intensifies until the gnarly winds of November swirl it all away to usher in icy briskness. It is then, with a reluctant heart, that I inhale Autumn’s final fragrance and bid these seasonal friends adieu.

“If a year was tucked inside of a clock, 
then autumn would the magic hour.”

Victoria Erickson

I am grateful to experience the glory of all four seasons where we live. Each quarterly shift is an important mental marker as we traverse the seasons. And for me, fall flamboyantly reinforces a deep, continuous appreciation of the solace of nature and the importance of our inner flames. 

There has always been a profound adoration within me for this special time of year ever since I was old enough to understand the calendar. Creativity and productivity have always blossomed with the burgeoning colors, charting a course for the coming months. 

“Autumn leaves shower like gold,
like rainbows,
as the winds of change begin to blow.”

Dan Millman

Being warmed, energized, and grounded reinforces my tolerance of winter’s lengthy chill. And while nature always brings something to its year-round table, autumn provides a bounty of introspection. Harvesting what we’ve sown is physical and metaphorical, and fall is the time to savor, contemplate, and perhaps redirect. 

“How beautifully leaves grow old.
How full of light and color are their last days.”

John Burroughs

Aside from autumn’s brilliant spectacle, so too it is with people whose vibrant souls age like fine wine, becoming more complex and delicious. Their lifespans of stories delight and inspire. With an inner glow, their presence lights the dimmest surroundings and their conversational embrace provides knowledge, hope and contentment. 

The flutter and fall of leaves reminds me of these human treasures I have had the privilege to keep company with. Those who have shaped my path, courageously loving me despite my sometimes-errant humanness, and coaxed my uniqueness to confidently bloom. Without this vibrant forest of folks, my humble existence would have been far less motivating. I can only hope to offer others even a fraction of the same brilliance once bestowed upon me as I stroll the woodland paths of time. 

“I hope I can be the autumn leaf,
who looked at the sky and lived.
And when it was time to leave,
gracefully it knew life was a gift.”

Dodinsky