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Walking Where Bears Tread

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Come walk with me in the peak Autumn beauty of the Northwoods. To say that I love this time of year is an understatement. Most everyone can appreciate the colorful falling leaves—it reveals the ‘true self’ of a tree when its leaves are no longer producing chlorophyll. Their true colors are revealed, and there is something simple and shimmering about that. But many people dread the coming cold and snow and how the days are short on sunshine and light. I have learned to appreciate the gray clouds of a Winter’s day and how the light has shifted from peeking into the north windows of the house to the full, long gaze through the southern windows. It’s a warm gift from the tilt of the Earth. Receive it with an open heart. And the invigorating cold and the beautiful snow…but I’m getting ahead of myself!

Before our trip to Mille Lacs Kathio State Park a couple weeks ago, I checked the website for alerts and notices, and at the top of the list was this: “The bears are active! Please practice bear safety and plan accordingly.” Good to know. The DNR has a couple of dedicated pages to bear safety—what to do, what not to do, and reassurance that bears (like so many wild animals) are not ‘out to get you.’ So we were well aware that we were walking into bear territory as we packed our snacks, but we soon had Fall’s colorful changes in our eyes and on our minds. The perennials—ferns, grasses, and flowers—go through their own color transformations that add interest to the forest floor. The greens of mosses and ‘evergreen’ plants are the rich outliers in the Autumn palette.

I loved how some little creature had tucked an acorn into the thick moss that was growing up a rough-barked Pine!

An amber wetland with spikes of dead trees was surrounded with the rust and red glory of Oak trees. A water trail through the cattails made by a beaver connected him to the forest trees.

The woods were quiet except for our rustling through the fallen leaves.

Then I recognized and remembered a Grandfather Pine ahead of us on the trail. Old darkened claw marks from a bear had scarred the tree from year’s past with beads of hardened sap like amber rings on the claw print. And on the other side of the tree, there were much newer claw marks with whitened, sugary sap dripping from them. (Not so new that the sap was still wet!) Mad respect for claws that can do that to an old tree.

The backpack camp site where we were hoping to eat our snacks was occupied with tenters—lucky them to be camping on that beautiful place overlooking the lake! So we curved back through the glorious Maple trees towards a bog, one of dozens in the 10,000-acre park.

The bog was ethereal as the sun lit up the golden Tamarack trees. They weren’t quite in their full glory, as some were still tinged with green, but there is hardly anything more beautiful than a stand of golden-yellow Tamaracks before they drop their deciduous needles!

Bogs are fascinating ecosystems! Peat moss looks like a solid substrate from which all the trees and plants grow, but with only one step into the bog from the forest floor, my boot sank into the water just under the surface. That’s why only certain trees will grow there, those adapted to wet feet and acidic environments. So even while the colorful Oak seedlings germinated in the mossy bog, they don’t stand a chance of maturing there.

We circled around the bog, often walking on boardwalks over the low spots. Orange mushrooms, green moss, gray lichens, and a scattering of leaves decorated the fallen logs and ground.

All I could do was peer into the bog, into its mystery. I wondered if a bear would cross a bog. What creatures live in the floating fantasyland? These places where we cannot go capture our attention and imagination.

Colorful leaves camouflaged a colorful Fly Agaric mushroom popping from the ground in its Autumn season. This one is pretty but toxic.

The trail veered away from the bog and was covered with a golden blanket of Big-toothed Aspen leaves. Old logs, like troughs, held the shimmering leaves. Drink in the beauty.

Claw marks from a smaller-than-a-bear animal were etched into a mushroom on the trail, but soon we passed another large Pine tree that had the head-high scratches from a bear.

Another sign was a torn apart rotten log where a bear had been on a quest to find ants, grubs, or rodents.

One tree gone back to the Earth, a new one to take its place.

Towards the end of the trail, there was a wetland of rushes and grasses carving out a space in the forest of Oaks and Aspens. The most beautiful part was a ring of young Paper Birch trees standing in a singing circle close to the edge of the wetland.

There is mystery and intrigue with bears and bogs. Both are natural and necessary parts of Northern Minnesota. The water-laden peat moss is an unsteady anchor for most trees, yet others have adapted their root systems to splay out in order to stand tall. The bog plants are unique in the same way—adapting to the sometimes harsh conditions in order to thrive. The bog and the bears stand apart from passers-by (usually), even as we are in their midst. We know on whose ground we tread (or tread around.)

Autumn is a glorious time—perhaps to fill our hearts with goodness and appreciation in order for us to traverse our more difficult Winter. Life is like that—we have goodness-filled glorious moments to sustain us through our hard times. Through it all, we are walking the trail of our Life’s journey towards our true self. We begin to see our own true colors and those of the people around us. And there is always a place, a part, a piece of us that seems like a place we cannot go, a place we fear to go. It nags at us, consciously or unconsciously, and intrigues us in some wistful way. That’s where we need to go—it’s an invitation and a map. There may be bears and bogs that frighten us and deter us, but our true self is brave. Our hearts are open to receive it. Drink in the Beauty of it.

Thank you, readers! I am grateful for all of you who have joined me on this glorious Autumn walk. This post marks my 500th post of North Star Nature! I began this venture almost ten years ago (March of 2014) to share Nature’s beauty and wisdom, never dreaming I’d write 500 posts and share over 7500 photographs! A special thank you to those of you who have been with me from the beginning. If you love the great outdoors, be sure to like and share North Star Nature!

Awe All Over Again

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I love details. Details are up-close things to be noticed and examined. All the tiny nuances and changes, colors and shapes, normality or pathology. When I was in graduate school, I could spend hours with my eyes to a microscope looking at chromosomes of triticale, histological specimens of mouse testes, and morphological characteristics of sheep sperm. So fascinating! When I lifted my eyes from the microscopic world, I tended to look closely at details of the people around me. What was different? Why was it different? What’s going on with you? There are certainly situations where noticing details and questioning changes are super-powers—it works well for scientific research, but it can have its limitations when it comes to certain aspects of interpersonal relationships. Just ask Chris. This literal ‘short-sighted’ attention to details can bog me down in the minutiae of life—I am not thinking about the future or the ramifications of my inquiries; I’m just gathering facts and information. And I can get stuck there. Perhaps that’s why I’m extremely near-sighted. But I would hate life without my ‘corrective lenses’—I also want to clearly see what lies beyond my armlength! There is a world of wonder in the whole spectrum of near to far! Just like most things in life, it comes down to balancing the details with the big picture. While Chris has had many annoying moments with my detailed fact-gathering, I am fortunate that he has balanced me out with his foresight or far-sightedness. I am literally speechless when he asks me a question about how I envision something in the future. “I have never thought about that,” is usually my answer after realizing the void in my brain. So while I try to sing the praises of details, he challenges me to move my eyes to the horizon.

Last weekend we encountered Autumn in its full glory at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park. The first thing on my list was to climb the 100-foot fire tower to see the big picture! But I had to wait my turn! Cars were parked along the narrow road, and a line of people waited for their opportunity to climb to the top. Each section of stairs brought me closer to the tree-tops, then far above them until I could see, on the horizon, the shining blue water of Mille Lacs Lake, Indian Point peninsula, and Rainbow Island. It was glorious to get a 360 degree view of the beautiful Fall forest. The Oaks and Aspens were brilliant in all colors of rust and red and golden yellow. The clouds were thick and moving, so at times the sun would burst through and brighten and lighten the colors. I felt like I could touch the sky!

When my feet were back on the ground, we drove to the interpretive center overlooking Ogechie Lake, a historical producer of wild rice. The conical-shaped Tamarack trees that lined the wetland of the lake were not quite to their peak golden-yellow. Then we hiked the Touch the Earth trail that led to the bog boardwalk.

Big-toothed Aspen leaves were falling to the ground and the red and rust of Oaks shocked us from the yellow-of-it-all.

The bog was beautiful despite the toll of the summer drought. The leaning Birch trees were golden along with the Tamaracks while the Black Spruce trees and Labrador Tea maintained their constant green.

Most colorful in the bog were the Wild Blueberries in shades of red and pink.

It takes time and intention to notice the details. One has to put aside the compulsion to hurry, make every second count, and get in the recommended number of steps in a personal best time. Letting go of that compulsion, as hard as it may be, releases something inside yourself and allows a different dimension of time and success to flow through you.

The new-brick color, the number and shape of the leaflets, the environment of sticks and leaves, how it touches moss, the wear and tear on the leaves, and most extraordinarily, the veining of the leaflets and how a heart shape is formed—those are the details of an Autumn Wild Geranium leaf.

A Wild Cherry tree wears a unique Fall color that draws our attention to it—not quite yellow, not quite orange, not quite rose, but a combination of them all.

The beautifully barked Pine trees are a constant through all the seasons, though they, like the other trees in Autumn, drop some of their needles to create the fragrant carpet of rich brown.

The source of the Rum River is Mille Lacs Lake. It runs through Ogechie Lake, meanders to and through Shakopee and Onamia Lakes, and joins the Mississippi River at Anoka in its 154 mile run. It is a State Water Trail, a designated Wild and Scenic River, and was originally called Mde Wakan or Spirit Lake River by the Dakota people. It is a venue that encourages paddlers to see life from the River’s point of view, up close and personal.

I have traveled through decades of Autumns, and with each passing year I experience awe all over again. Isn’t that wonderful?! Nature has so much power and beauty, uniqueness and wonder that each season of each year is like new again! It allows us to touch the sky in order to see the big picture and to touch the earth and see the amazing details. I think we each have a tendency towards one or the other of ‘the pictures,’ so it helps to surround ourselves with people who can see things differently than we can. It is also a personal challenge to do that within ourselves when we know we can get stuck in always striving towards that future big picture or we are bogged down in the details of the moment. Nature helps us see the whole spectrum, from near to far—in the world and in ourselves.

Distilling Down to Brown

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If we were to distill down life into one color, what would it be? I mean literally distill down every cell of every being. No matter what color we and the trees are to begin with, I think all living beings become brown.

Brown is my second favorite color. Of course my favorite color is azure blue of a clear sky day along with most other blue hues. But brown is a close second. Most people wonder how ‘brown’ of all colors could be a favorite, and I don’t really know—it just is. It feels natural and warm and comfortable. Brown is the color of the Earth—perhaps that’s why it feels so grounding and good. It’s also the star color of late Autumn.

Apparently in color mixing terms, brown is a combination of red, yellow, and black and is described in categories of reddish-brown, yellowish-brown, or gray-brown. But there are more descriptive names for shades of brown: smokey topaz, burnt umber, russet, desert sand, chestnut, and taupe. (My favorite descriptive brown—taupe represents the average color of fur of the French mole—who knew?!)

Autumn is the transition time between the vibrant productivity of Summer and the slow-moving dormancy of Winter. Those of us who have journeyed into the Autumn of our lives know that we have already lived longer than we will yet live. Our vibrant productivity has waned, and we can embrace the brown-ness of our lives. (I mean that in a good way.) There is something stabilizing in that realization and acceptance.

There is a richness in brown-ness, a richness in having the high productivity years of child-rearing and striving and accumulating behind us. We are no longer moving at the speed of multiple school activities. Striving has morphed into a steady maintenance and kindness for self. And we tend to want to pare down on possessions, to lighten our load. Our growth and vigor have produced rich, brown seeds.

In Autumn, we can look at ourselves and appreciate the many varied colors of our being. We are so much more than we thought! Age has a way of revealing those gifts.

So we can discern Sumac brown…

from Ash seed brown…

from Pine needle and Pine cone browns…

from Pine bark brown…

from multi-stemmed Caragana brown…

from Oak and Poplar leaf brown…

from Hazelnut brown.

Autumn is the time of life when extraneous activities, possessions, and thoughts are distilled down, pared down, settled down. The most important aspects of life are extracted. It allows a person to see more clearly, for there is a long history of hindsight. The experiences of Spring and Summer have borne fruit and seeds in order for the cycle of life to continue. It’s not the end, however; never fear—distilling produces the ‘good stuff!’ Things become more pure, whole, and stable. Settle into the brown-ness. Settle into the warmth and richness. Settle into the goodness.

A Walk in the Woods

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Let’s take our hearts for a walk in the woods and listen to the magic whispers of old trees. –author unknown

This is one of the most wonderful, uplifting times of the year to go walking in the woods. Each tree seems to be more beautifully colored than the one before, and some spectacular specimens produce an absolute feeling of awe as you stop and stare up at their fall finery.

It is a time for purging, getting rid of the old. It is a ritual as old as Mother Nature herself—it has purpose and timing, procedure and method. No human interaction necessary…

…until the discards pile up in a thick, crunchy carpet on your yard! But in the forest, the leaves are doing precisely what is needed—they are protecting the roots and crowns of all the plants that hibernate for the winter. In the northern climes, the blanket of leaves waits for a blanket of snow that adds another layer of protection from the cold temperatures.

So Autumn is about purging and decay—just like the trees that die, are used by insects, woodpeckers, and animals of all sizes, and return to the earth. Like the leaves, the wood from the trees is broken down to return nutrients and humus and bacteria to the soil. The wonderful sustaining circle of life.

Walking in the woods at this time of year is a noisy affair—no sneaking up on animals or persons when each step swishes and crunches and crackles. It’s the music of Autumn that somehow infuses a feeling of childlike joy to the wanderer.

Wild and magical mushrooms that push their way up through the soil and leaf litter or grow from the side of a tree always amaze me. They are tough, yet delicate, striking or camouflaged, and have an artful flair.

Autumn is about hiding—the plants and later some animals will hide away under the old, purged leaves, in the old, decaying tree stumps, under the plant material that sinks to the bottom of the lakes and streams.

Two Sandhill Cranes are hiding from us, bathing in the shallow water, and eating their fill of gleanings from corn and soybean fields before they migrate south.

Autumn is a time of reflection. What do I need to purge from my life? What do I want to let go of? What do I need to protect myself? What brings me childlike joy?

What brings artful flair to my life? What inspires me?

And the leaves fall down right before my eyes…

That’s the Thing About Expectations

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I think me and my expectations need to break up. I have valiantly carried them with me for decades and decades—expectations for myself, my family, my friends, the teachers of my life, the service people in daily life, the political power-brokers, and just about everyone. And by expectations, I mean high ones, but most of the time, I would settle for decent. And still, I get disappointed.

This past weekend, I had high expectations for Mother Nature, too. We had signs of Fall here and there, but the majority of trees were still green, so I figured if we headed north, we would see some Autumn glory. Yes! We went up to Crow Wing State Park in the Brainerd area, and I fully expected to see a forest of beautifully-colored trees and plants. Umm, not okay. It didn’t look any different from those here at home. And sure enough, I felt disappointed.

The only thing I was even half way happy about when we arrived was that the Mississippi River water level was higher than the last time we were there. The last time, rocks poked up through the slow-moving water and the shoreline was sandy-muddy wide—I was so disheartened that I would not even take a picture of it. The drought had taken the ‘mighty’ out of the Mississippi.

Crow Wing River was a narrow channel of water where it flows around Crow Wing Island to meet the Mississippi. The tributary was doing its best to contribute, but the lack of rain up-river starved it of its normal current. Some recent rains had tempered the extreme drought conditions, but we were far from ‘back to normal.’ And that also partly explains the story of the trees—they had had a stressful summer. Their priority had been staying alive—and oftentimes, the endeavor is not pretty. Many leaves had dried up and turned brown from lack of moisture. We crunched through them on the trail. But the green of the trees did hold a slight golden hue, so perhaps it was also my entitled expectation that just got the time-line or the place wrong.

I complained for awhile (forgive me, Mother Nature), even as I noticed the more subtle signs of Fall. The perennial plants and grasses were different shades of Autumn—rust, burgundy, and orange—and they had all produced their varied and valuable seeds! The harvest abundance of Autumn seeds had formed and matured despite the constricting conditions of drought. The will to reproduce is strong.

As we walked and I noticed the pinking of Virginia Creeper on its way to brilliant crimson and the late-flowering spike of Mullein against a tall Oak, I realized that I had been wrong in my expectations. I had been arrogant to think that the forest of Crow Wing should be what I wanted it to be when I wanted it. I expressed my realization out loud to Chris, giving credence and appreciation to the ‘process’ of Autumn. We can’t just be present for the ‘glory.’

And soon, I began to see signs of the ‘glory!’ The sky had cleared to a brilliant azure blue with puffy balls of white clouds. An Ash tree stood like a tower of golden finery. A Red Oak had begun the transformation to its namesake color.

And a little Ironwood tree stood on the edge of a Pine forest like a princess among the royal elders, its skirt held out in a curtsy with dried seedheads for a crown.

Chris’ good snake-eye saw a slim little Red-bellied snake camouflaged among the rusty red Pine needles. That’s a treasure!

A Maple tree, in just the right sunny spot, displayed the colors of Fall—yellow, orange, and red—in the ‘process’ of winding down its chlorophyll production, of letting the summer leaves fall away, and of preparing for the season of Winter. It was doing what it needed to do.

The sun light and the shadows of the things that stand in its way, tell stories that flash into our brains and rest there until we are ready to take them out, hear them, see them, examine them. Expectations are part of those stories.

Disappointment can be the very real outcome of high expectations. It feels like a slap to the face or unexpectantly taking a hard fall. It stings, it’s surprising to our self-centered way of thinking, and it is a betrayal of sorts. That’s the thing about expectations. But just as I’m ready to throw in the towel on expectations so as not to experience disappointment, I become a referee between those high expectations and the results of letting go of them. There are reasons for rules, standards, protocol, doing things right, living up to our better angels, and wanting the best for others. It’s how the game of life is played. It’s how we mitigate chaos, produce results, ensure safety, and live with joy that comes from goodness. Last weekend I wanted the glory of Autumn on my timeline. What I got was a soul-smacking dose of disappointment and a subtle take-me-by-the-hand walk to humbleness. A lesson to temper my expectations? We carry the light and the shadows of our stories, and when we examine those stories, the old things fall away, including some expectations and disappointments. We embrace the process. We celebrate progress, even if that means stepping into winter. The light in our eyes and in our lives gets brighter.

A Season of Neutrality

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I am not neutral about my high school Chemistry class—it was the best thing that happened in my life that year! Many may be on the opposite side of the spectrum remembering tortuous labs and wondering why the heck the periodic table is even a thing. Most may just be neutral about it—I did it, it was ok, not memorable, not torture, I barely remember it. But remember learning about atoms with their nuclei of protons and neutrons with orbits of electrons filling the energy levels and how it all fit so perfectly as diagrammed on the periodic table! So good! But just the neutrons today—they make up the nucleus of atoms along with protons. Protons have a positive charge and repel one another. (The electrons orbiting the nucleus have a negative charge and ‘bond’ with the protons to sustain the atomic structure.) The neutrons have weight or mass similar to the protons, but they have no charge—they are neutral. They in essence neutralize the positive charges of the protons and keep the nucleus, and therefore the atom, intact.

We are in a neutral time of year—most plants are dormant, the weather is neither warm nor cold, and we’ve had some snow, but nearly all has melted. We’re still in Autumn, but the majority feels like it’s Winter already. And the colors of Nature are neutral—grays and light browns—when everything seems to blend into its surroundings.

But every once in a while on our hike at Warner Lake County Park, there was a bright and shining electron or a colorful proton (so to speak.)

What would the world be like if everyone loved and studied Chemistry and Biology–the science of how our world and bodies work? As with any subject, politics included, there are people who love that subject, study it, teach it, research it, and dedicate their lives to it. They know the protons and electrons and neutrons of their subject.

The best thing about being neutral and not believing or disbelieving in anything is that the nature reveals the truth in front of you automatically. –Aishwarya Shiva Pareek

Sometimes the nature that reveals the truth is as simple as counting numbers or as complex as cyber security. The complicating factor is our human nature. We all want things to be the way we want them, but that’s not the way Life goes. Being neutral means being impartial, not helping either side, unbiased, objective, even-handed, fair, open-minded, and detached from the outcome. After a nasty partisan election season, we need a season of neutrality. Let the grays and light browns calm down the system for a period of time. Let the sporadic bursts of color elucidate mistakes and missteps of the past and illuminate the path for the future. Let’s be neutrons for a while and keep our nuclear family and our world at large, intact.

It’s Time to See Our Roots

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We take things for granted. Things unseen, things that have been in place for a long time, things we don’t think about, and things we just believe to be true and steadfast, even when the evidence says otherwise. Election season is such an interesting social experiment. I have taken voting for granted at various times in my life—I believed that all would be well whether I voted or not. I naively presumed that anybody running for office believed in the sanctity of the office being pursued. I trusted that public servants worked for all people in their constituency. And it didn’t even occur to me that there were people out there who didn’t want everybody to vote and to vote easily. (sigh)

What keeps a tree from falling over? We don’t think about it or usually see the structures that anchor a tree upright. Before leaving Ely on our Northwoods trip, we stopped to see Kawishiwi Falls, a place the kids have talked about from their summers there. Soon after we began our short hike, I saw a tree with roots like octopus legs! As I looked more closely, I realized that the tree grew out of an old stump and the roots grew down over and around the decaying wood. How unusual!

But that was not out of the ordinary in this place! Soon another rooted anomaly presented itself. The Birch tree trunk had been stripped of layers of white bark by passersby. (Not a good practice.) The tree and its roots curved around a large rock, depicting a long-necked turtle-creature being showered by Fall’s golden coins.

A stately White Cedar was poised on a knoll strewn with rocks with its exposed roots reaching towards the trail.

Another Birch grew on top of a flattened boulder, roots flowing out like a ballroom gown from a tiny-waisted dancer.

Rocky soil and years of erosion have exposed the roots of these giant trees—some with roots as big as trees themselves. It made me think about what it would look like if we could peer through the soil and see all the root systems of all the trees, intertwined, interconnected, working together to support and nourish each tree and all the others. The unseen foundation we mostly take for granted.

Along with the exposed roots, the falling leaves were everywhere. Fall is the ultimate recycling process, nourishing and replenishing the soil with fallen leaves.

I could hear the falls before I could see them. The terrain underfoot became solid rock. Then we saw the tumbling, aerated water flowing over the dark rock of Kawishiwi Falls. Kawishiwi is an Ojibwe name meaning the ‘river full of beaver and muskrat houses.’ It was a thoroughfare for Native Americans, explorers, and fur traders—all of whom had to portage around the 70-foot-high falls that links Garden Lake with Fall Lake.

In the late 1800’s, it became the route where loggers floated the huge, fallen trees to the mill town of Winton.

In the early 1920’s, as the railroad took over the transport of logs and the demand for electricity grew, the Winton dam and powerhouse were built to produce electricity. Nearly 100 years later, the power of the River is still generating zero emission, carbon-free electricity.

From the falls, the River flows around a little island into Fall Lake.

A portage trail (where people carry their canoes and supplies to get from one lake to another) still connects the two lakes for the canoeists. Along the trail I noticed this branch that had been drilled by a woodpecker. The drills were not fresh—some healing had taken place around the wounds, but the wounds were abundant. A tree can heal from wounds of many kinds unless they are too extensive.

We walked back from the falls through the forest Fall spectacular. Though most mourn the passing of warm weather a tiny bit, it is reassuring to see the next iteration of the progression of seasons.

Nature gives us some comforting certainty. With Autumn, we know the daylight hours decrease, the weather cools, the leaves change color and fall from the trees. We know that Winter will follow. We can take that for granted—for now, at least. We the people and our right to vote are the roots of our democracy. We the people are the ones that keep government upright, keep it stable and able to weather the storms of economic uncertainty or of a pandemic. I will not take my right to vote for granted again, for there has been a wounding of our democracy. Lies are wounds, foreign interference and disinformation are wounds, and the dismantling of expertise is an extensive wound. It’s time to heal. Don’t take truth and integrity for granted. It’s time to see our roots.

Seasons Within a Season

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Imagine our lives as Mother Nature sees us—as a part of Nature, a part of Her. We are like the trees, moon, rivers, the prairie, elk, dragonflies, and the sweet apple. We were created as one of them. We have cycles, instincts, reflexes, and a myriad of functions that perform without our conscious will. We are physiological miracles! Our lives are on a trajectory towards death—that’s how it is generally portrayed, that is. Then we do all sorts of things to not think about that end—how do we distract ourselves, hold on to our youth, our old values, our accumulated wealth?

Imagine our life’s trajectory defined as seasons. Whether we view our lifespan as 80 or 100 years, we have completed our Spring season by our early to mid- twenties. Just when we feel we are ‘beginning’ life on our own, we are one-fourth of the way through our journey. We have budded, developed, learned, created, become. Our twenties, thirties, and into our forties are our Summer—productive, vibrant, energetic, full of growth. Summer gets things done.

Here we are in Autumn—literally. It is a favorite season for many, a season of harvest, brilliant leaves, campfires, pumpkins, cool weather, and a turn towards the hearthside. A short walk outside my door immersed me in the transition season—it could not be denied. A Birch tree and Hazelnut shrub are showing their colors.

Virginia Creeper vines, once just another green-Summer thing, stand out in brilliant red, and always project a poinsettia-like image of another season to me.

A sweep of Sumac under the yellowing Elms is showing its fiery colors and is being noticed in this Autumn season.

Even the ‘evergreen’ Pine trees change color and drop some of their needles in the Fall. They are culling the number of needles, downsizing in order to conserve energy during the cold winter.

I found a couple of Wild Turkey feathers on the shared trail along with yellow Milkweeds, rosy leaves and berries of a Mountain Ash tree, a tall, fuzzy-leaved Mullein, and the mottled tips of an Oak.

Back in the yard, a Wild Plum tree reminded me of an Autumn person—day by day there was a slight change of color, like a person gradually going gray.

The Crabapple tree, with its dark purple Summer leaves, actually gets brighter and more beautiful in Autumn.

Looking at our lives as seasons honors the development and beauty of each part. It has a rhythm and sensibility about it. There is no ‘over the hill’ as there is on a birth-to-death time line. In each season we have ‘work’ to do, challenges to overcome, and things to experience and learn. It’s like each season of our lives has its own cycle of seasons! Seasons within a season! And yet each is unique—Autumn is the only time the leaves turn brilliant colors and drop from the trees. It is a time for culling and downsizing. The Autumn season of our lives gives us empty nests, just like the birds. We conserve energy, and as the old way leaves us, we enter a period of quiescence while looking forward to a future new thing. No need for distractions. The seasons and cycle of Nature sustain us.