Falling
We’re in that in-between time of the year when the day dawns frosted and you don your sweaters…but then by early afternoon, it’s changed its mind, and you find yourselves throwing open the windows again playing that game where you act all irritated that Mother Nature can’t make up her mind. But you know it’s coming every Fall (and Spring) and it’s part of your relational dance so you roll your eyes while playing your part well.
There’s brilliant blue sky, and even more brilliant colors breaching the fettering green Summer’s insisted upon. I remember how altering it was to What I Thought I Knew when I learned that the Autumn colors were, in fact, the true colors.
I think that’s very comforting, actually. It reminds me that the most beautiful and rich and unique comes out right before everything starts falling away and relinquishing the delusion of mastery and control. And I happen to think Relinquishing is a lost art.
I used to have this bad habit of coming up with ideas or thoughts but lying about it. I mean, I’d share them but I would never say they were thoughts or ideas of my own. I feared that if I put one of them out there, attaching my own self to it, the credibility or worth of it would be bled right out. So I’d make up a name of a fake author. I never really cared about getting any credit for whatever it was I wanted to share anyway. It was more the movement through me, of whatever it was that arrested my heart and mind, that I wanted to talk about.
Then a few friends caught on one day because, when I did this, I always recruited that same worn out “I can’t remember the name of the author who wrote this, but…” One of my buddies outed me one evening and, though it was on the funny side and we all laughed about it, the message hit me loud and clear: Stop hiding like that. It’s cowardly, to put it mildly. And it’s disingenuous, to put it not so mildly.
So. When I see how the Real comes through the Common each Fall…meaning, when I see how the Yellow comes through the Green each Autumn, I used to be fascinated with the science of it (still am). But I remember the day God paused the station for a few minutes during the insanity, and caught my eye with the aspen leaves quietly relinquishing.
And I found myself muttering to myself, out loud, as though I just saw for the first time what I’d been Not Seeing every time looked at it: God Loves Yellow Into Green.
God loves yellow into green.
I really believe that. And I really love it.
The coming winter and the death and the dying? How everything goes into a dormancy? Not a fan. But I’m getting to a place where I’m good with it, because I like how planting bulbs in the Autumn is important so that they can experience what it is they need in order to resurrect next Spring. That is, a frozen, dead winter buried and (hard to believe this one) incubated.
So, welcome Autumn. Welcome relinquishing. Welcome Letting Go.
Falling.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist pulling out the color altogether to see how beautiful it looked this way too.
Beautiful. That fact about the leaves showing their true colors has always been one of my favorite things about fall, or at least since I learned it, but I’ve never thought it through like you did here. Good thoughts.
Shannelee, thanks for that—and please remind me of all this tomorrow morning. I just found out the snow is coming. *bangs head on keyboard*
The true colors of life…You see them every day. And, thanks to you, we’re capable to glimpse the immense beauty hidden into life.
Maybe it’s not so difficult to understand…Winter is the sleeping time, the not so resting time for Nature, that still runs more deeply and profound as we ever can imagine.
You’re finding your place in life, your real place in life, and, thanks to that effort, we’re doing the same for ourselves.
Autumn is a miracle, just like you.