ODE TO AUTUMN

“To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Autumn is my favorite season.  There is a special energy that comes and fills the air.  The chilly days and the bright skies get my attention, like something is coming just over the horizon.  Some see this time as an end…and it is.  The crops are done producing and the harvesting of the final fruits of the land is occurring.  The leaves are all down, leaving the trees bare.  The earth is deaccumulating its excess and beginning its time of rest.

For me this end is really a beginning; a clean slate is being presented and draws me into a season of gentle pondering, meditating, and stillness.  The work of the last year is dropped into the compost pile, to be worked into what it wants to become.  Now the new thoughts and ideas have the opportunity to show themselves within the barrenness of the earth and the open sky.

I love the bare trees empty of all of their covering of leaves.  The lack of color, the simple dark limbs reaching into the sky in a posture of prayer and praise to their Creator draws me into a spirit of worship.  There is a beautiful simplicity to this scene that somehow clears my mind and soul, making it easier to focus on that one thing.

Yes, Autumn is my favorite season because it ushers in the season of wintering, where my contemplative soul feels most at home.  Autumn calls me to “Come to the quiet” of the next few months and simply be attuned to the silence of the earth around me. 

Wintering is like a Spiritual Practice for me.  It’s when I find my deepest communion with God.  It’s when I find my deepest communion with who I really am.  I enter this year of wintering having returned to that me I know so well.  That makes this Autumn even more precious to me.