Season
of Turning
“...The
autumn wind is a raider, pillaging just for fun.”
Steve
Sabol
Steve Sabol, the late NFL
storyteller and film maker, capitalized the word Raider, and earlier
in this quote also spoke of the autumn wind as a Pirate. For many folks,
autumn is football season, pure and simple. Certainly, here in
Alabama, the Tide will roll and the War Eagle will fly, and tens of
thousands of fans will scream themselves hoarse every Saturday until
the winter solstice.
This morning, this first
day of autumn, the wind is indeed swashbuckling its way around my
morning porch and rattling the dry, brown leaves, which are rapidly
falling without turning beautiful colors. But autumn is so much more
than wind and leaves. This is the season of turning; the wild birds
migrate south, the burrowing animals forage and build their dens in
preparation for winter. And, human beings seek solitude within and
without. It is the season of long walks, and deep meditation, of
considering and musing about future plans and changes in direction.
The cooler, shorter days
and longer nights bring us to this time of stillness. Even if we live
in a neon city, even if everyday life remains the same, our
body/mind/spirit responds to the turning of the year, to the changes
in light, to the lowering of the sap. The sun rises later and sets
earlier, and we slow our pace to match. There are reasons for these
rhythms. Creation provided for change in order to facilitate the
natural cycle of growth, death and renewal. Our earth tilts, and we
tilt with it. When we make conscious these changing cycles, we can
lean into them for maximum benefit. Consider the ways you might slow
down and give thought to your inner life. Take the candle of
consciousness and enter into the growing darkness with
anticipation—not with fear, but with expectation of rich
reward.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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