TheBanyanTree: Seasonal

[Maria Gibson]

September is almost over but I barely remember its beginning.  I'm 
looking forward to October; I feel fall in the air.  Leaves not just 
falling but leaping and spinning to the ground in a flurry of bright 
colors soon to go bland.  October has long been my favorite month when, 
in the midst of what is an end, I feel a beginning, an affirming 
awareness of the circle of life in all of its glory.  This is the real 
birth of life which, for me, could not happen without first enduring its 
end.

With summer gone, I am almost upon my October.  The leaves which once 
clung so solidly to my branches are changing colors and loosening their 
grip.  They surely will fall in this personal autumn.  The cycle is yet 
in its infancy; the colors are not yet imbued with their full, rich 
hues.  The fires of reds and golds, so breathtaking, won't come without 
cost.   Soon a carpet of beauty will bury the browning lawns.  The 
blazing colors will fade and what was once so spectacular to look upon 
will also be browned, litter, and in need of collection.  Only winter 
can prepare the grounds for the vigorous energy needed for rebuilding 
and rebirth.  Winter will not come without the passion of autumn.  The 
circle isn't complete until you are walking toward what you once left 
behind.

The emergence of green, tender shoots lifting from hibernation can only 
be achieved when first the old is shed and a time of cold, barren 
stillness is endured.  Nature needs this cycle and we, with our brains 
and thoughts and minds of steel, are no different even as we try and 
convince ourselves that we can avoid it.  I can't avoid it; it is 
stronger than I am.  The pull of the bright burning colors hold me in a 
hypnotic gaze and the cooling winds promise aid.  Not only can I not 
avoid it, I don't want to.  I have to shed.  I know there is bound to be 
rending pain and a time of browning and a need for collection and a time 
of barren stillness.  I know this.  But I can also feel what waits on 
the other side.  I may not know what it will all look like but I know 
the bulb is there.  Buried in the throes of autumn, it is patient.  It 
is enduring.  Through bitter frosts it will wait for the day a thin ray 
of warmth reaches in and calls to the innate ability to push through 
cold earth and show green promise.  Fragile, tender, but not without a 
strength borne of purpose.  It will wait.  As will I.

Maria