One week til Fall...

Windows open, extra blanket on the bed, snugly puppy, leaves changing color, shorter days, chili and soups for supper...HURRAY autumn is on the way!

To me, autumn is more renewing and hopeful than spring, summer, or winter. I love changing seasons; I love something about each season, but by far, I think I look forward to fall each year more than the other seasons.

Winter through summer feels like a speeding up of time...winter being the slow start, spring getting up momentum, and summer in full speed. In summer there is a potential for discontentment, "how much can I get done in a day?" behavior. Go-go-go all summer, taking full advantage of long days, comfortable nights, and fair weather opportunity.

With autumn, relief. Summer's speed winds down. I can still do things outside, without worry of dehydration or sun stroke, not to mention it's my best hair season (in between the sweaty brow and rainy seasons). :) In the fall I sleep better, cozied up with windows cracked or wide open. It's cool enough to relieve the plants and allow recovery from summer's scorch in time to hibernate for winter. Autumn brings on the hope of a new year soon to come, the bliss of the holidays, and the chance to plan for the future while harvesting a year's worth of work. The air seems cleaner, fresher, easier to breathe. People seem happier, easy-going; it's like the feeling when you take a long vacation and in a way you are sad that the fun adventures are at an end, but in a huge way you are so glad to be going home because vacations are exhausting!

Autumn also allows time for reflection, which may be why it has become the season I look forward to the most. There is time to notice the changing weather, the motion of the sun and the the patterns of the sky. Fall brings about a consciousness of changing seasons, more than the others do. Fall helps me appreciate the other seasons by reminding me that there is a time for all things to begin and end.

That said, a few lines from Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, sums up my feelings about fall:

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven--time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

May autumn bring you blessings!