Autumn ’21
Time, as time does, has continued to pass – almost unnoticed, and now we’re in Autumn.
Is Autumn merely a transition, or a time of limbo – neither summer nor winter?
The time of year when plants and trees lose their leaves, things stop growing and any chance of being able to enjoy a long sunny and warm day is now a long way off?
Is this just a season to get through, one for us to bear, rather than to enjoy?
Actually no! Autumn can truly be a ‘feel good’ time:
Of course we do have far less daylight hours but if we venture outside we can see beauty – it’s there in the rain bouncing into puddles, in the mist gently draping over the trees, it’s there in the gorgeously coloured leaves fluttering to the ground, in the previously depleted streams which are now running full, the waters gurgling and dancing as they head towards the sea.
It is a time for cuddly jumpers, warm hearths, casseroles with dumplings, less guilt about curling up with a good book, Halloween parties, fireworks, and gathering with friends.
Most of all, Autumn is a time of change – embrace this change, start things anew. We have a new school year, new dramas on tv, new clothes to wear as we turn away from summer gear and get out the warmer items. Clubs which had finished for the summer now begin again
Like all change, the onset of Autumn can be difficult, can push us out of our comfort zones, but if we can accept it and turn towards the positive that the change brings, we will adapt and change too, more ready and able to face what life may bring.
The Lovely Autumn Days
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, –
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Keats
Do you think of Autumn as a time of hibernation, of endings? Or as the beginning of something new? If you have any thoughts, favorite images, poetry, quotes that you would like to share, please send them through to me, via my contact form.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Jennie x
