getting ready to lean into my darkness...

Today is all reds, browns, and yellows in the wetland. The sky is gray, filled with

an insistent rain pulsating with the promises of autumn. This is the season we learn about letting go: letting go of the sun and its warmth, letting go of the garden and its bounty, letting go of simple walks without serious preparation, letting go of the leaves, the flowers, and so much of our outward lives. For those in New England, and even more so in Canada, daylight will come to a crashing close in a few weeks when 4 pm becomes nightfall. This takes some getting used to and even the natives find themselves in the throes of periodic depression as we move towards All Saints Day in November. Doctors have documented a Vitamin D deficiency among many of us as well.

In two weeks time, all the colors of the field will vanish except nuanced browns and grays as a stern starkness seizes the day. The obvious complaint with this shift is its severity. The exuberance of summer must give way to introspection as

externals are put on hold and we start to hunker down. Nature invites us to prepare for this transformation, but our eyes must stay open as this turning point moves quickly. A wise colleague captured the challenge of this upheaval well stating that when our only seasonal produce has been reduced to maple syrup, no matter how delicious, something new is coming. The autumnal equinox kicks it off. Christopher Hill writes in Holidays and Holy Nights that "autumn is poignant... piercing our hearts and waking us from drowsy summer... with a sharp longing for something else." 

We humans see the spiritual beauty of a thing most clearly when its time is passing or passed. Nothing becomes legendary or sacred until it dies. In autumn, natures time is passing. The world is at its most beautiful and poetic because it is passing away. The natural world lingers for a moment on the bring of this transformation... with a bitter sweet beauty that we are about lose. The light turns from the clear, practical white light of summer into the mellow gold that we call antique - like the yellowed pages of an old boo, the sepia of old photographs, or tarnished brass. Old light, legends of the fall, Indian summer. Nature (already) has one foot over the threshold of eternity and glows with a slant of light

from the other side of the door.

 

I rarely grasp this at first. Being distracted by pumpkins and gourds, apple cider and a limited run of pumpkin chai from David's Teas, I'm consumed with the cornucopia of colors among the trees, wild grass, golden rod,  asters, grape vines, and sumac. Something in my soul is dazzled by the deep, root-like hues of the countryside this time of year and I lose track of time. Only when the upper leaves of the massive wetland's oak turns red can I confess that fall is upon us. It doesn't matter how long I've been raking leaves or fertilizing garden beds, that tree is what I need to know that now it is leave-taking time. Soon there will be a chill in the air, a stripping of color from the hills, and a shroud of darkness that won't give up the ghost until late February.

Parker Palmer believes that during this time of transition nature is engaged in a paradox of dying and seeding." Faced with (the departure of summer and the inevitability of) winter, what does nature do in autumn? She scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring—and she scatters them with amazing abandon." (The Paradox of Fall, Fetzer Institute) Christopher Hill adds another layer of depth to this tension:

In summer we celebrate our at-homeness in the world. Michalemas (the

Feast Day of the Archangel Michael on September 29) balances that feeling. In autumn we feel our not-at-homeness, the sense of wanting something else, something we can't name... Summer is static - in Latin, solstice means 'the stationary sun." (That makes) summer a sacrament of natural harmony with God, when we can see that 'fallen nature' is really only nature seen with fallen eyes, and that all around us paradise is still going on... Autumn is not dreaming time... and the flaming trees say it all: they are a last flare of gorgeousness before death  as well as a signal fire, a wake-up call to the soul... as we encounter the conflict between light and dark. (Hill, pp. 36-37)

First, there is the robust beauty; then, the austerity arrives. September and October ask us to bask in the abundance of creation's bounty as preparation for the emptiness to come physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We not only bring in the harvest and care for the hearth, we intentionally let go of what is over, what is old, what is no longer real. For this, it seems to me, is how to embrace the blessings and wisdom of God's first word in creation. We read the signs of the time. Early autumn shows us what it looks like to release what no longer serves us. As leaves fall and blow away, so too with some "possessions, relationships, old habits of thought and behavior." (Hill, p. 42) Recognizing and naming what is complete, helps ready me for the rigors of November and the anticipations of Advent. The ancient Celtic Church, like contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy, observed Advent from November 15 - December 24. Restoring two weeks to Advent feels right to me after honoring the Vigil of All Hallows Eve (Halloween) as well as both All Saints Day and the Feast of the Faithful Departed on All Souls Day.

Perhaps it is an awareness wrought by the pandemic. It could be the damp chill in the air. Or even the slow connections I discern as I ripen into retirement. What ever the origins, I want to be ready - and still like James Wright in his poem, Beginning - to lean into my darkness.

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.