October came with rainbows. Day after day of brilliant colors to the sky. A landscape shifted to includes golds, oranges, reds, and deep greens. The landscape itself has turned to a rainbow right in front of our eyes these last few weeks. The cold has descended and our first frost kissed the ground after the scent of snow came in on a north wind. Right in rhythm with the season.
For a year now I have watched this landscape with a baby. She has slowed my days and brought me back to the ground. She was conceived in the awakening of spring and born at the onset of winter. She is in rhythm with the seasons and with her days come new revelations of this wonderful world we get to join in its rhythms.
When the shifting light arrived at the end of September, I began to realize that seasons of our days here the north aren’t that much different than our days. Spring is the sunrise. The sun finally rises and brings with her the warmth, gentle awakenings of the world. Summer is the high noon sun. The heat, the lush, the dew gone, the water warmed. We live in the clear blue skies. The fall is the sunset. The waining light paints magnificent colors all across the landscape. The colors are immense and the cool comes with the setting of the sun. The night is Winter. The darkness arrives and with it we find time to rest, heal, rejuvenate, center back inward so that we are ready for the dawn.
As I have made this deep connection to the bigger picture of a year, I have found calm with the rhythms that come. I welcome winter like I welcome the end of the day. I recognize its shifting light and that it indicates it is time for rest. I live fully in the summer days knowing this is when we life is opened and experienced. And then fall, I sit in complete awe of it. We do the final shutting up of things. We clear the garden. We prep our soil for it’s sleep. We watch the wild colors take over the landscape and we watch them as they fade away like the waining light of the day.
I find such comfort in these rhythms. I have marked my life by them since I was young. Without them I feel quiet lost and without grounding. Each season a routine; a system to accept for what it is and ask nothing else of it. It is why when we fight we wish winter to be warmer it is no different than the angst we feel in the night wishing it was the day. We feel tired and blurry eyed when the sun finally rises because we didn’t use the night for what it is meant for.
As we dive deep into fall I am thinking of this sort of rhythm in my life. I am thinking about how to build deeper rhythms for myself and to do the things the season asks of me. We slowly shift from one to another. The landscape and the wind and how it blows tells us just what time we are at. We have to pay attention because if we don’t we can be caught in a place where we are behind or lose our footing. We can feel at a loss or robbed or an expectation.
So as we enter the last half of October I feel we are at the point in the sunset where the sun has painted the sky all the colors. Everything is perfect. We have time to finish up our work before the sun fully sets behind the hills and the snow arrives. We live in the moment and in gratitude of the harvest. We bring out the candles and set the table with warmer meals. We light the fire to bring in a little more light and to remind us of the brighter days but feel drawn together in only the way a fire can.
These rhythms and routines create a sense of normality in a way nature only can when we allow her to be seen. In this time in the world I am learning to listen to the Earth more in hopes she can teach me things the human world may never teach me. My hope is to learn to remain constantly in growth, learning to adapt, to find new ways to root, to look for ways to find stability, and to most of all to continually be reminded all things have their time.
So when I see a year…I now see it much like a day.
The dawn.
The mist in the hills.
The high warm sun on a clear day.
The rain storm.
The rainbow.
The unexpected snow storm.
The greening hills.
The sun dipping to the hills.
The changing colors of the maple.
The dark night that reveals the stars and the milky way.
All hold magic.
All hold truths.
All hold lessons.
All hold a path.
A year is a day.
How will we see the pink light on the wall and know to wake?
How will we sense the right warmth of the soil to know when to plant?
How will we feel the tomato well enough to know when to harvest?
How will we listen to shifting song of the birds know when to rest?
How will we be aware enough to know the smell of snow means it is time to light the fire?
Those are the things I want to know without a calendar. I want to feel. I want to watch. I want to smell. I want to listen well enough to know in my bones when the right moment is. To feel connected enough to know when to make the right step in the right direction.
