(This is a "raw" write. It is the result of a writing practice I do to explore my inner world; not meant for an audience, it is jagged and honest. Rarely will I share one, but the unapologetic quality seems to fit my morning's view of the coming season, and perhaps it will serve as an invitation to try writing from the place of spirit. An FYI: the mountain that suddenly appears is one we hiked this past weekend – changes in voice or pace often occur with this kind of writing.)
The
shadows in the woods are different these days. It is dappled,
porous, and the sound of the air shimmering the leaves that remain
rides on the flattening light. Summer's depths of shade and green
have thinned. In my memory the foliage of June and July seems
succulent – now it is crunchy and kicking along with my footsteps
as I walk the dog on the familiar trails across the street.
My
heart starts to thin too in the fall – at least, it feels like it
has risen out of the depths of the near-decadent wallowing it does in
the sounds and smells and ripeness of full summer. I feel it
thinning out in the coming cold, gripping in tension as color fades
from the landscape. I am more shut inside, turn inward to tasks to
keep my mind off the change, and yet – and yet – there is a
knowing that finally when we come to rest in winter, that will be the
time of letting go, the time of dreaming. And so this transition
could be something else, not so brittle, if I actually turn and
attend to it straight on. What if I just go down into the field and
lay in the grass, feeling the cold earth beneath,
listening to what is, what is – not aching for what was?
This
is the practice then, the practice of being present to the isness of the
transition, neither looking behind nor ahead. And might I find that
in fact it is not an in-between, it is itself? Yes, yes, my head is
telling me I already know this. So what is it? (It is so much easier
to find excuses than to do the work.) What is it about fall? OK,
gloves off – I don't like the colors: they are too bright, too
showy and they have stolen my green. – I don't like to be cold, at
all. I loved the heat of the summer. In coldness, I become more
lifeless. And just what do I mean by lifeless? It's that thinning
again. I am not in my body, I bump into mental and spiritual walls
and back out of living to the level of lists.
Walking,
walking up the mountain I begin to warm. Some woods feel good – I
imagine these leggy diseased beech trees pillowed in deep snow and
think I would like to come snowshoeing here in the whiteness and
sunlight of February. Then the old uncut spruce forest, gaping
darkness, softness and quiet – I feel the ancientness here,
church-like, not a place to settle into, though. Then the krumholz near
the summit, the gruff dwarves of the mountains' trees, old but short
and gnarled, apprehended by ice and wind over and over, and yet
tenacious. And then it is Bob and me standing on the bald rocks, and
– exposed to the wind – the layer of sweat near my skin begins to
chill. I put on more and more coats, but my instinct is to tighten
inward, find shelter, hide. There is no glory in this, no
invigoration. And that is just what is, for me. Maybe I don't need
to befriend the cold. Maybe just turning and attending to this
season will only reveal that indeed, it is not my story, there is no
fecundity here, it just is, for awhile, and I will be in it, cold
earth below, night-sky clarity above, and be thin.