An Ode to Autumn
How God transforms us along with the seasons
What is it about Autumn? There seems a common delight, brought on by the shortening of days, flanked by cool, crisp mornings where dews fill the meadows awaiting the rising sun to chase them away, and evenings where dinner time slips peacefully into twilights of orange and ash grey as wood smoke hangs wistfully in the air. The shadows lengthen as nature grows quiet and pensive.
Wherever you gaze, the world is bathed in a rich palette of color. Early rays of sunlight break across the mountains, turning the hillsides into a brilliant, ever-changing kaleidoscope. Fall is a time for artists and poets, for lovers and longing.
Of all of autumn’s splendor, it is the leaves that first draw our attention. Particularly the shades of red. Yellow, orange, and green will endure throughout the season, but red bursts fast and furious upon the scene, and then quickly fades away. Perhaps as nature's seminal color, red, in all its intensity simply loses stamina and burns itself out...a hare amid the turtles of the forest.
As Autumn’s mottled world draws us in, it ushers in a change in our own. We may not perceive it as quickly as we do the landscape’s majestic transition, but by divine design, we too respond to the rhythm of the seasons. Twice a year, the earth is re-balanced by the arrival of an equinox. Once in Spring and again in Autumn.
An equinox brings the earth, and each of us, back to a place of equanimity. In Latin, equinox means ‘equal night’, when the length of day and night are the same…a return to equilibrium when the earth is at rest, the days no longer stretched to extremes, the nights once again set free to roam. Autumn marks the descent into the quiet, sleepy days of winter. It’s a peaceful, reflective time where the harvest is gathered, the hay is in the barn, and our thoughts turn to family, friends, and our own predilections.
It’s been said that Autumn is the year’s Sunday, a period for reflection, a sentimental time where we ponder the past. Our lives are made up of the things we’ve picked up along the way. Some belong and some don’t, and when a sentiment crosses our path, we instinctively know the difference. This is the clarity that autumn’s pause brings, and is the power of its hallowed work…an annual cleansing of the mind as we too, regain our equilibrium.
Our lives are made up of the things we’ve picked up along the way. Some belong and some don’t and when a sentiment crosses our path, we immediately know the difference.
It is to the warm, periwinkle sky of Autumn that we gaze with a far-off look of wonderment and possibility. There is no pretense in deep introspection, only brutal honesty. Perhaps that is why we feel at most ourselves during autumn.
Everyone has a time and season which belongs particularly to them. For many, including this author, those days are found in autumn, as summer’s triumphal postlude combines with winter’s plaintive prelude in peaceful harmony as we, who are listening, yield to the reverie of the season. It’s a familiar tune, joyful, yet strangely melancholic. One we sing side by side with nature in doleful nostalgia as we feel more acutely 'les’ feuilles mortes'…our own fallen leaves.
Try as you might, the spell is futile to resist, for all is made right in Autumn.
Marc K. Ensign Paradise, Utah
TOC (October 2021)
