The Truth in Autumn by Cynthia M. Brown I love all the seasons of the year. There is something special about them all: The crystalline beauty and magic of winter, dazzling white snow and crystal blue skies; the delight in Spring with the return of green and the splashes of pastels in the garden, the bird song and the warm kisses of the sun; the blazing glory of primary colors in summer and the heat of the intense long shining sun; and the pungent smell of leaves on the breeze and the fiery blaze of the forests of fall. While they are all special, there is something profoundly beautiful in the fall. Like its equinox cousin spring, this is a season where people actually travel to view the color. In spring it is the forest and prairie wildflower walks. In Autumn, it is the color of the forest itself. The profound thing for me is that this is the time of year when the earth’s sentries, her trees, show their true color. All summer, they mask their nature beneath the work of making food. When that work is done, they relax and sigh in the ecstasy of their natural colors, their beauty roaring to the tips of their leaves and filling the countryside with a riot of blazing color. Then, slowly, as the breezes grow stronger with the turning of the north winds, their beauty slips from the fingers of their branches, wafts to the earth to nurture the ground that will help feed them as they sleep and the cycle will begin again. The thing is, we, humans, hunger for their beauty. We drive to the heart of deciduous tree country just to be able to walk among these glorious living things as they share their true nature with us and the world each year. We ravenously fill the parks and nature preserves and forest trails to smell the earth change from a time of explosive business and production to one of rest and slumber. We glory in the north wind as it turns toward us, bringing cooler days and crisp nightfalls. We luxuriate in the lengthening shadows as the sun slips its summer yoke and slides into darkness more quickly, signalling the earth and all its inhabitants to rest. I wonder if we understand why this is. I wonder if, in the midst of changing time to fit our busyness, in the glare of all our lights that fend off the slumber of nature, in the clamorous drive to go see nature “out
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there in the woods”, if we really understand what the earth is telling us. I believe, as is often quoted from the Bible and the song, there is a time for everything. I believe we crave this space in nature because we crave a safe space in which to be our authentic selves. We are hungry to cast off the drive to produce and to just be, to shine in our natural beauty and brilliance. Autumn gives us a moment of rare beauty and a glimmer of hope that there can be a time and a place for us to just be, to sigh, breathe deeply, shine brightly and fully and to rest. We call our advancing years the autumn of our lives. It is a time when the work of child rearing and preparing for retirement and old age is complete. I am close to sixty; dangerously close. What if I want my autumn now? What if I want and need that hope of rest and being fully myself now? What if I have needed it all my adult life and have simply bought into the lie that I had to wait until it was time? What if I decided to believe it is time now? What if I lived my life as if yesterday was a memory and immutable in time and tomorrow was a dream not promised? What if I lived in my own authenticity now? What if the truth in autumn is really that, beneath what appears, the authentic nature is still here? What if, all we have to do is make time for it to show itself? What kind of colorful, amazing, gloriously beautiful world of people we would live in? The truth is we already do live in it. We just have to slow down enough to breathe in and exhale into it.
Human Horse Connection Melanie Wiechel (513) 578-4141 https://humanhorseconnection.wordpress.com A multi-faceted and holistic program with a focus on healing the mental, physical and emotional bodies • Life Coaching • Home and Land Blessings • Animal Communication • Spiritual and Medical Intuitive Readings • Online Spiritual Development Classes Available Now
Autumn Rain 2020
