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Posts from the ‘fall’ Category

Autumn’s Adieu

“Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day.” – Elizabeth Bowen

As the leaves rain down and limbs go bare, the morning freeze lingers;
Autumn color remained longer, a blessing not to be forgotten, yet we will forget;
Winter with its crisp air and crystal flakes to enter soon;
Commanding rest and repose;
Do not forgo the seasons both without and within;
Each one and the transition to the next carries its own gifts,
To autumn, to winter, to spring, to summer and all the inbetweens.

To Autumn by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Fall Festival

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” – George Eliot

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

Embrace the brevity of autumn, the celebration of fiery colors, the harvest of summer’s work.
Winter enters slowly then swiftly, holding its own blessings and beauty.
Enter the brilliance of each season, the gift of each day.
Fall festival is in full swing.
Allow the color and light to enter, casting it back out in return.

“There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

Transformation on Display

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

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

Fall and spring are seasons that display in full color the beauty, certainty and magic of transformation. Entering and coming out of dormancy and stasis. Whether we see it or not, transformation is happening within. Each season in life has its purpose and meaning. The world transforms one person at time. Witness, observe and enter the flow of change, of becoming, of seasons. Planting, germination, bursting with color.

“Notice that autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.”- Friedrich Nietzsche

The Last Waltz

“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonize.” – George Eliot

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” – Carl Sandburg

Summer lingers and leads the dance a bit longer. The last waltz coming as summer begins the release to fall. Temperatures swing from 40s in the morning to 80s in the afternoon. Early sunsets shortening the light span of each day. The grass growth slows, preparing for rest, dormancy and rejuvenation.

As summer takes its last waltz and fall appears in one leaf turning to brilliant orange followed by the next and next, enter the gift of transition time. Grateful for what was then releasing it to sweet memory, opening arms to ready for what is to come.

Each season builds and weaves into the next, often for reasons we do not know in the now. Trust the surety and process of seasons, transitions and new beginnings. While often not on our time, never failing and always the right time. Awaken and enter the flow, ease and glide of the last waltz.

“Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild Do hymn an autumn sound. The summer sun is faint on them— The summer flowers depart— Sit still— as all transform’d to stone, Except your musing heart.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Autumn

Reverence Time

“By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather And autumn’s best of cheer.” – Helen Hunt Jackson

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”― Albert Camus

As summer completes her third act and fall prepares to enter center stage, be open to seek and see the gifts woven in each season, in transition, in endings and in beginnings. Each day is a gift, open and enjoy the moments you are in.

Gratitude harvests beauty in each season.

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”― Yoko Ono

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