Thoughts on an October Day

And you look down at the village and it’s all dressed in bright yellows and burnt oranges and fiery reds – the trees are literally ablaze with color. You are floating between summer and winter on the ghostly gossamer wings floating on the breath of an ephemeral and anachronistic summer wind — so out of season and so out of place. But it is here and you relish it. You drink in its warmth, you savor its sweetness and you wish hopeless and helpless wishes for summer’s return. But it won’t come back and you know it, but still you can’t hide your smile. You open your arms and let the warm breath blow on your face.

A thought comes to you…no matter how terrible things seem to be, life is good. You look down at the trees on fire and wonder why the death of warm days and soft starry nights is so colorfully arrayed as if dressed for a triumphant return instead of in drab and dark mourning clothes and dressed for a sad, sentimental goodbye.

You fly on the wings of gossamer things. You are floating above vast stretches of summer-green grass, stalks of dead corn, bales of gold and brown wheat and randomly scattered painted forests. You don’t know how but your eyes can see through the blazing trees to the floors of the forest. In each one you can see squirrels and rabbits and deer and other animals of the forest all scurrying about – all seeming to be in a hurry.

The animals of the forest below are in a hurry; the dying time comes and they know it. The animals don’t need a calendar to remind them that winter comes and brings the dying time. You know what they are doing, they are stocking up for the long, cold, bitter winter. Their survival depends on it. They don’t need computers to compute how much food they will need for the long winter ahead. They don’t need accountants to take counts of things; they don’t need scientists to figure out the long-term effects of El Nino.

You don’t know how long you have been hovering over the woods below; time seems to have stopped. Suddenly you feel overwhelming amazement as you realize how well nature takes care of its own. You are humbled and small. You realize that humanity’s technologies cannot even come close to rendering a picture more beautiful than this forest full of blazing trees and scurrying creatures all painted perfectly beneath the brilliant October-blue sky.

The warm wings caress and coddle you as float gently in that ethereal space between the Earth below and the heavens above. You know you are somewhere in between the two – and you realize you are somewhere in between birth and death… somewhere in between the cradle and the funeral pyre.

You feel a peace you’ve never felt before. High above the villages and the towns and the cities of men and women and children, drifting over the bright autumn woodlands, hovering between the farmland and the woodland and the rivers and the streams and the barren wasteland, drifting under clouds of dragons and cotton candy and unicorns and princesses, under the moon and the sun and the stars, you realize you’re as unimportant as the most powerful and as important as the least powerful. You are meant to be just as the sun and the stars were meant to be, just as those little animals running around in the forest were meant to be. You realize the world would be as incomplete without you as it is complete with you.

You are a son of the stars, a child of the sun, a daughter of the forest, and a father of the river, and a mother of the stream that meander below. You have a right to believe you are as important as orbit of the Earth around the sun and as insignificant as that thin wispy cloud drifting above your head.

Suspended in time and space you wonder if you are dreaming or if you really are riding on the heavenly wings of a summer past. And then you realize that it does not matter if it is real or a dream. Dreams may be as real as reality and reality may be as real as a dream. You think about that and realize that in the end it never really matters anyway.

You sail along beneath the cerulean-blue autumn sky, the warm wings of an ancient summer wind lifting you above the beauty and the turmoil and the suffering below.

in each house there is a story. There is tragedy or there is a story of bravery or cowardice or one of betrayal and sorrow. There is a story of love and happiness, of family and celebration. Each house, each person, each village, each town, each city – has story that you know you’ll never read. You smile because you are part of everything and and part of nothing. You float above the world alone connected to nothing, belonging to no one but the wings and the wind upon which you are borne.

You smile because you have a story too and no one has ever been able to read it all – only bits and pieces. It’s sad in a way and it’s meaningful too. No one can ever read your entire story and you can never read all of anyone else’s – we are one and we are many.

Below the forests glow in autumn’s color -the clock of nature ticks away and winter approaches. The insects, the birds, the animals, large and small, don’t need a clock or a calendar; they are one with nature and the Earth. They will survive the winter or they won’t. Either way, they are lucky to always be in nature’s hand. You have a feeling they belong here just as much or more than you do.

The apple tree’s dark branches sway and dance in the autumn breeze. There are apples all around you on the ground and above you clinging precariously to the branches above your head. You think of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple falling on his head. Then you think of a fig newton and a Wayne Newton – and you laugh because it’s autumn and you are alive. You are happy even though the dead things of winter wait just weeks away – just around the bend of life.

Apple cider, donuts, football, bon fires, pumpkins, leaves of red, and yellow and orange, crisp clear days and frosty mornings – these are the thing of autumn. These are the days of your life.

The warm winds of summer are gone; its wings have taken it to the people on the bottom of the world. The forests and the landscapes, the bales of wheat and the dying corn, the animals hurrying around the forest preparing for winter – everything is a part of your story and you are a part of theirs. No one will ever read the whole book of you – no one will ever know your whole story.

It is profoundly sad, you think, that you can’t read anyone else’s entire story – not even the ones you love most. But you think, maybe it’s a blessing in a way, because they can’t read your entire story either – and you know for sure there are a few pages of your story you’d rather not have anyone else read.

You yawn and wipe the sleep from your eyes. You wonder how you ever woke up in the middle of someone’s apple orchard. You brush the dirt and grass from your jeans and head for the country road that lies just beyond the last row of apple trees.

“I love autumn…” you say out loud to yourself – there is no one else around.

And then you notice then that the sky is so blue – it is almost strange.