As a visual learner and luddite, I still post single-month paper calendar pages above my desk to keep track of the days.
At the beginning of each month I print out a blank calendar page which I tape to my wall, removing the old month.
This ritual does not often evoke much emotion; it’s just another administrative task.
Until September. September brings the feels.
It isn’t just the back to school vibes, the onslaught of articles about “Pumpkin Spice—Yay or Nay?”or moving into sweater weather.
It is also that here, in the Pacific Northwest, autumn signals the end of sun season and since I identify as “solar powered” that is an ending I do not naturally embrace.
However.
As the saying goes, nothing in nature blooms all year.
There is value in letting things lay fallow, in honoring the cycle of growth into harvest, inviting in the shift in the light and air, and recognizing that despite all of the “progress” we have made as humans we are meant to attune to the rhythms of the Earth.
So my new practice is to notice when I have my habitual reaction—”Autumn?! Already??”—and remind myself to be with what is, right now. To see the beauty of leaves changing. Of wistfulness. Of slowing down. Of the dahlias. And all of the gifts of fall.
Happy autumn everyone!
“In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon…
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.”
—East Coker, T.S. Eliot
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Try it!
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