Observing Autumn With The Neighbor's Cat

 

Thursday, Oct 20 (2022) 11AM  

Observing Autumn with the Neighbor's Cat

Today, my soul awakens. Quiet. At rest.

I sat outside with the neighbor’s cat and took in the glimmering light of Autumn.

Have you ever looked at an autumn leaf?  I mean, really looked at it?

 Did you see the changing color of the leaf itself? The edges of green fading into yellow? The burnt brown color of almost-dryness?  Did you notice how orange leaves can only be seen from a distance?  Like an artist’s palette, an orange leaf disappears up close. As you approach an orange leaf it changes to hues of red and yellow.

 Did you notice how some trees drop their leaves all at once in a finale of swirling about in a funnel wind? In less than a minute’s time?  While others hold onto their cloak, letting go one leaf at a time.  

 Some leaves fade their green into spotted patterns. Some, edges first.  Some drop to the earth completely green and others dry right on the tree. I was hard pressed to find a red oak leaf this year, yet the maples yielded many.  And the wind puts the leaves where it wants them to be.  In piles along walls… moving them to and fro under the trunks of trees, spreading them around until they are pleased with the layout.

 The Neighbor’s Cat doesn’t like to walk through the crunchy, crumbly, edges of leaves, so she hurdles them in one leap, to avoid them under her feet.  She carefully walks in between each one scattered about the lawn.

 It seems there are far more shadows in Autumn that any other time of year.  The changing angle of the earth against the Sun’s light filters through the golds and red and lights them aglow like lanterns upon the trees and the ground, filling the air with enchantment and wonder.  I think this reflected light is what opens the door and thins the veil between us and other realms this time of year.  It breaks open the unlocked gate to our doors of perception and allows memory to flood in with the light.

 Autumn calls us to slumber.  Naps are more abundant and so is yawning, as the air cools in autumn.  The warm foods of harvest’s bounty breach our tables as the smell of sweaters and mothballs emerge from cedar chests.  I like to increase my bird feeding this time of year to let the animals know we will help them through the coming months. 

 The air in autumn moves like a thoughtful lover, sometimes a gusty wind sending his ripples through the ground cover and sometimes a gentle caress, warming the land with the last moments of Summer’s End.  And if you are so blessed to be loved by the wind, perhaps a leaf will glance your cheek, blow in a curious bird or hand you a single leaf—floating down and down, landing in your lap—the last leaf of Autumn—to one who is there and appreciates it.