I always find that the change of season brings about a change inside me as well. My mood shifts as the sunlight does, and what I crave in my life changes. For me the New Year kicks off, an exciting time thinking of what all I hope to accomplish within that year. I think of this stretch of time as a caterpillar in its cocoon- a season of quiet growth, preparing for the next season. Working steadily with perhaps no results, really leaning into whatever my focus is for that year.
Spring follows winter and I’ll confess spring is really not my favorite season. It’s a time of waiting- and I don’t like to wait. The seeds of hard work have been sewn, the work continues and the days are gray. It seems like so much of this time is spent waiting for the days to pass until summer comes.
After what always seems like an interminable wait summer comes! I usually relax more in the summer than I do other times. The weather is nice, I love being outside and there are many opportunities to gather with friends and family.
Then comes fall, our current season. I love fall but it carries a weight with it. A foreboding of what is to come. I like winter but it does get long and will seem even longer if I don’t prepare myself for it. But fall is also a cozy time of year, I take time to curl up and start a long reflection process of what the year has been. Just like the final crops in the field that are harvested, so I usually start to see the progress of the fruits of my labor from the past year.
But it’s more than that, this feeling that accompanies fall. I think back to the “Good Old Days,” when after all the hard work of the harvest was done on the farms, they would make a celebration of the final harvest. Often this was the last big celebration before winter started. They would enjoy time with friends and family, usually not seeing many of them again until Christmas and then not again till spring.
I feel the same way. I want a pause, to enjoy the rest that used to come with shorter days but that now we have to fight for. I want to enjoy a little quiet after the excitement of summer, and before the beautiful rush of the holidays season starts. To me fall is a time to grab a cup of something hot and delicious. To curl up under a blanket. And to then look around- at the pumpkins in my decor, at the leaves as they turn outside, at anything and everything- and to remember that this season, as all of them should be, is an invitation to count my blessings. It is a time to reflect on all the many blessings that I have been rushing past, too quickly to enjoy, for the past 10 months of the year. It is a time to pause and sit a while; will you join me?