Autumn snuck in!
Autumn is here, it snuck in when we thought it might never arrive. It takes me by surprise each year, and yet it shouldn’t, not really, it’s part of the wheel, like clockwork, will always appear. I’m resistant though to its arrival, I’m a summer baby, a water one too, I love the heat and the energy of summer, and although I know that it tends to burn me out in the end, I never actually want it to end.
In many respects I’m grateful then, that autumn suddenly appears. If I think about it too much I get a longing for the warmth which I know is about to disappear. I cling on tightly, not wanting to let go, yet autumn does it for me, because there’s nothing to hold on to when it arrives. And actually i’m always blown away and spellbound by its clarity of light.
The last few days I have caught myself mesmerised, cycling and having to stop and be still and watch the most incredible evening skies as the sun as setting. I could have shouted to the universe, “you are so beautiful”, I wanted to, but I didn’t, because I did’t want to scare anyone, but it was that stunning.
Then yesterday at the beach. I was lost in the revelry of the clouds. Oh my goodness, those autumnal clouds; the most perfectly puffy clouds, cumulus clouds, their name deriving from the Latin cumulo, meaning heap or pile. These are piles that are welcome in my sky, suspended, low in the bright blue sky, a gift from God, I was mesmerised. I love clouds, could watch them for hours, but these have to be my favourite, in autumn, when the light is bright and the sky so full of life.
I swam out as far as I could into the bay and lay on my back and gazed at this clouds, and the land, and I could see the Guet in the distance, an arch of green, and I thought maybe I had died and gone to heaven. To be held like this, held, oh my goodness, you know you’re alive, that there is a mystery that we cannot name that permeates our being and in moments like that, moments, we are suspended in its glory, I didn’t want to be anywhere else on this Earth, this beautiful earth.
It got me again later, out on the bike. I had to just stop. It reminds me of Scotland, this autumnal light. There is something about that place, the space, the light, the clarity, it’s made for people like me, the artists and the poets, the seekers and the wanderlust. We bathe in this stuff; it does something to us. Every time I visit my best friend in Scotland, I spend the first few hours commenting on the light, mesmerised by it, blown away, stunned, nothing else seems important but embodying it somehow, anyhow.
Autumn does that to me too, beyond the initial resistance, when I can smell it creeping in, the mornings, sometimes the evenings, when summer is still in full swing, but there’s a shift, the leaves, already browning, the acorn, the blackberries! How can I write about autumn and leave it so long to mention blackberries., Now these are another autumn gift. This is the season of the harvest, fruits and vegetables, what is there not to like. We are awash in the bounty, is this the most abundant season? I can’t be sure, they all usher in a gift, but there is something special, ok it’s the light, I’m still lost in the light.
So that’s another summer done and gone, although it won’t be done just like that, it bobs in and out, snatches of it, reminding us, “here I am”, it says, “yet but here I am”, autumn calls back with its apples and tomatoes, its squashes and berries. Then it will just disappear, a memory, a reminder, a motivation towards next summer, next summer we will do this - maybe next summer I’ll make it to Petit Port, I meant to do it this year, but summer ran away with itself, the same bays, the same beaches, there’s something comforting about familiarity, of witnessing the shifting landscape, then passing seasons, the subtleties.
We’re headed towards the equinox now, they say many of the dolmens are orientated towards the equinox shift, the equal duration of days and night when all is in harmony, the light and dark, the tipping point, another turn on the wheel of the year, taking us this time towards the darkness, the waning down, the dropping within, the introspective time of reflection and stillness. There is much to be celebrated. And we will celebrate, a perfect time for bonfires, for the letting go of what is no longer needed and the tending to the harvest, of the seeds planted, finishing off those projects of which I have many.
It’s an exciting time, full of its own potential, the opportunity for transformation by the grace of God, the grace! Oh the grace of the transition, we have much to learn. I’m trying to learn, to allow, allow, allow, the mystery, flow, not hold on to that which needs to be gone, an identity, perceived, imagined, made real, who cares who cares?! Puffy clouds, that’s the image I’m going to hold, still, full, just being, be-ing. I like that. Autumn. Light. Clarity. A glimpse of the mystery. I felt that. x
