Autumn

Fall represents an ending to many people.  It is the end of long warm summer days, the end of the growing season marked by raking up dead leaves and the final harvest.  But to me fall has always been about beginnings. 

As a kid, I always loved the beginning the school year with my spotless new notebooks, pointy bright crayons in pristine boxes and textbooks with stiff unbent spines. All tool for creativity and learning, all full of promise and a little mystery. Where would those books take us?  What would we make with those crayons? By the time springtime came around again the notebooks were tatterred, the crayons were broken and the textbooks, once full of undiscovered secrets, were now old news.



Autumn holds a treasure of promises and secrets. The cold crisp fresh air is full of the promise of new adventures.   The beauty and grace of fall is a reminder that life is just a big circle, that there is no real beginning or end.  It is a breathtaking bittersweet climax to the year.  Nature makes one last quick burst of energy and explodes in color before it takes a long deep in-breath and pauses for winter.  There the world rests gathering strength for the work of rebirth and growth.