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Appreciating the Beauty and Wisdom of Nature

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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.

Unfinished Business

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Remember that childhood game used to decide who gets to do something or more often who doesn’t have to do something? Rock, paper, scissors? Count to three while pounding one fist in your other hand and on the third count you make a scissors, rock, or paper sign. Paper covers rock, scissors cut paper, rock crushes scissors. That’s what our mid-March weather has been like! If we had hopeful thoughts of Spring, Mother Nature crushed those ideas last weekend with a storm that dumped ten inches of snow on our accumulated heap. Winter has some unfinished business.

The snow was wet and heavy and smothered the evergreens with its power. Branches bowed to the ground, broke from the trunk, and got stuck in the snow.

The heavy hand of Winter was not letting go of its reign without one last(?) battle.

Three days later, Spring’s rains, backed by a whoosh of just-warm-enough temperatures, cut through the snow like a warm knife through butter. The rains came, and the snow melted.

The official beginning of Spring is Wednesday, and she means business. Though pushed back, she will not be denied. Snow and ice are no match for the liquid warmth of her rain.

We’ve had a ceasefire in the last couple of days in the battle between Winter’s unfinished business and Spring’s compelling unveiling. The temperatures have ducked down below freezing again, slowing the melting and flooding while laying booby traps of slick, icy patches. Beware of where you step.

But we have another player in this battle of the seasons—the power of the Sun who has returned to our hemisphere to play. Sun covers all with a renewed power. He works on the snow even with Winter in control of the temperatures. Sol joins hands with Spring to move us forward. He reveals the dirt of Winter that was somehow unseen in these months of snowy beauty. The fireball excites the dormant current of energy stored in every tree and shrub, and the warmth of that energy melts a ring around each trunk.

The melting snow reveals another season with a smidgen of unfinished business. Autumn leaves are sandwiched between layers of snow, skeleton-like in their loss of chlorophyll and organic matter. Perhaps Winter moves along their decay, so when the green grass takes over in a flush of Spring, the old leaves will finally be integrated into the soil, completing that part of the cycle once again.

We still have plenty of snow and a fair amount of time where the battle of Winter and Spring plays out. It is familiar and necessary. It is the way of Mother Nature, with unfinished business from each season slowly and surely becoming integrated into the earth. How do we handle our unfinished business? There are pieces of our past that seamlessly integrate into who we are as a person, other pieces are up for examination and debate, and still others are hidden, denied, or ignored—the past that won’t let go of us—our unfinished business. How do we know it’s unfinished? It still affects us—nightmares, illnesses, insomnia, overreactions, projections, and repetitions of similar events like accidents, to name a few. These pieces need to be brought into the light of day, questioned, listened to, and accepted. It is the most loving thing we can do for ourselves. Bit by bit, story by story, day by day, tear by tear, the finishing happens. It becomes integrated—it dissolves into our souls, minds, and bodies—completing that part of the cycle in order to feed our next season of life.

The Old and New Seasons of Our Lives

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“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”   –Henry David Thoreau

When I was a child, I had a piggy bank shaped like a friendly, sitting dog.  It was made out of styrofoam and flocked with a reddish-brown ‘fur.’  A metal dog tag hung at his collar, emblazoned with his name—Rusty.  I put so many coins and folded dollar bills into the slot at the back of his head that the styrofoam broke away to a bigger hole.  A metal circle could be pried off the bottom to retrieve the money—money I earned cleaning out stalls at our neighbor’s barn; money I was saving to buy a horse.  I kept Rusty for a long time after I stopped using it, after I bought my horse, after a number of long distance moves, even after I had kids.  I felt like I just couldn’t part with him.  But then, one year of another move, he didn’t make the cut.  I was able to let him go.

This winter season so far has been a hard hitting one—not for snow, but for cold.  Christmas Day the high was 1 degree F.  As I am writing this, approaching the noon hour, it is 13 below with a wind chill of -32.  The actual temperature tonight is supposed to be 20 degrees below zero.  “Stay warm” is not just a Minnesota pleasantry, it is a directive of concern and safety.  But looking out the window, it is beautiful!  The sky is bright blue, the sun is shining, and we have a couple inches of fresh snow.  The birds and squirrels have been frequent visitors at the bird feeders this week to fuel up for the cold weather.  The deer even make their way to the feeder at dusk to browse on the fallen black oil sunflower seeds.

 

New Year’s Eve and Day are traditionally a time to let go of the old and ring in the new.  It is a time for a fresh start.  But often, the resolutions to make changes are broken before a week or two has passed.  The very things we were so enthusiastic about on day one become a source of failure and disappointment.  What if, like the seasons of the year, we resigned ourselves to the seasons of our lives instead of forcing a change that isn’t meant to be just because it’s day one of a new year?  What if the new year was about discerning where we really are ready for a change?  What if it was about accepting ourselves with loving kindness in this season as we are at this moment?  What if the things we think matter don’t really matter at all?  Every old thing eventually passes away—I held on to Rusty, tucked away in a box, for years, and I don’t even know why I did.  But for whatever reason, it was important for that season of my life as it passed.  And then, I was able to let him go.  So many things in our lives work that way!  Relationships, jobs, weight, addictions, hobbies, grief, physical ailments—all serve a purpose in the journey of our lives, and none of them are controlled by resolution and the calendar year.  So breathe the refreshing Arctic air, drink the drink with a toast to yourself and your seasons, make your way to the table and taste the fruitcake and other bounty, and let the Earth and its Master be your influence.  Stay warm!

More Leaves Have Fallen Than Remain

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“The leaf of every tree brings a message from the unseen world.  Look, every falling leaf is a blessing.”  –Rumi

If Fall is only known and embraced for colorful leaves, then Fall is short and soon over.  Too often a season is defined by one certain thing, and it passes quickly.  To me, Autumn began in August with little hints of color changes in out of the way places—a tinge of red on poison ivy peeking out from under the grass, and with a slight, but noticeable change in the length of daylight.  From then until winter sits firmly in our bones and on our driveways, Fall morphs in a myriad of ways, and it is long and glorious.

Here in central Minnesota, more leaves have fallen than remain on the trees.  Two weeks ago we wondered if it was ‘peak’ color yet; one week ago Chris raked what leaves had fallen; today the wind is blowing hard—raining leaves, rolling leaves, and piling leaves.

One of the large Maple trees around the house is bare.

Another has a few golden leaves still clinging to the branches.

And two are still mostly covered with their Autumn finery—for now.

But most of the leaves are spent and on the ground.

Some Oak trees have lost their leaves…

…and others glow like rubies and topaz.

Our ‘Prairie Fire’ Crabapple is lit with orange and yellow leaves that will soon fall, leaving behind the ripe red fruit.

 

For those of us who have lived for half a century or more, the words of the title can hold a different meaning from the literal.  More leaves have fallen than remain.  More years have passed than we probably have remaining.  While that may bring up feelings of sadness and grief, it could be we are defining this season far too narrowly and with only the parameter of ‘lovely leaves.’  What if, as Rumi says, every falling leaf is a blessing.  Perhaps we are getting rid of old, irrelevant burdens, ideas, heartaches, and self-imposed handicaps one by one by one.  When they have fallen away, the fruit of our lives is still visible, still relevant, still able to nurture those who need us.  We receive and embrace the messages from the unseen world, the gemstones that remain, and this season of life becomes long and glorious.