This past weekend ushered in the first true feel of Autumn to the mid-Atlantic region.
And it felt great! The crisp, cool mornings, brilliant blue skies, light breezes, not sweating your nuts off doing the simplest of task outside…yeah…fall.
I love fall, or Autumn, or whatever you call it. Could be I am an October baby, turned loose on the Earth the day before Halloween. So I guess you could say I’m tuned into this time of year. Makes sense.
But truthfully, I love all seasonal changes. It marks the passage of time in a physical sense unlike merely flippin the page on a calendar. If we even do that anymore, with out devices, phones and constant update of information.
The earliest people had no calendar, no clocks and really, no construct of what we have agreed upon as ‘time’. There is Time (capital T, yes) that my friend Billy Redhorse speaks of, but that is Magic. That is Spiritual and of Medicine.
The earliest people, and all humans and animals, use the passage of the seasons to mark the passage of ‘time’. They had the moon, using its phases as a micro level clock, so to speak. But the seasonal changes, the lengthening and shortening of days, that’s Time.
We often use seasonal changes to shift our lives and use it to set goals. To set waypoints and milestones. Religions have copied the paganistic rituals of celebrating the changing of the season for millenniums. We celebrate Spring as a time of birth and renewal, Summer comes with time to work and tend, Autumn is the harvest, and Winter is the time for rest and reflection, to prepare to start the cycle again.
No wonder we even have corresponded our lives, the actual passage of our days and years here on the mortal coil by comparison to the seasons. “The spring of their youth” “The golden years” that correspond to Fall, which leads to Death in the darkness of Winter, only to hold the hope we Spring eternal once more.
Take some time this Fall to enjoy the wonders of Nature, of Time (capital T) and how we fit into all of this.
Something to sit by a bonfire with a hearty beverage and contemplate.
Enjoy.
Lead from the Front!
Semper Fortis
Chief Chuck