It hit me today while I was out grocery shopping. I found myself mulling over home improvement projects: painting, organizing, re-arranging furniture. Some people get spring cleaning fever, I get an autumn nesting instinct. The season is changing and I'm about to spend a lot more quality time with my indoor space. I get the urge to make it cozy.
I think I will always have to be a northerner because I love the change of seasons so. One thing that hooked me on the ritualistic, theatrical, mystical-type church I joined (Episcopalian, natch) was the liturgical calendar. I love the rhythm it gives to the year and how it echoes the natural world. Advent (winter) awaits the coming of the light in the darkness. Lent is a time of dreary purification (perfect for February and March) leading up to the colorful burst of Easter (spring). I'm amused that summer is "Ordinary Time." I'm sure in an early agrarian culture that was necessary, but now it just gives me an excuse to take a spiritual vacation each year. Fall brings All Saints Day and it's (now) secular cousin, Halloween.
When I taught Sunday School I loved connecting All Saints and Halloween with their ancient ancestor Samhain (the saw-win previously mentioned), the Celtic celebration of the change of seasons from light to dark. It was a time to prepare for the winter ahead, harvesting crops and butchering livestock. I swear I can feel nature "powering down," preparing for a sort of death. It makes perfect sense to me that the Druids believed that the curtain between this world and the next is thinner this time of year, and thus easier for souls to travel back and forth. It's a good time for feeling close to those who have gone before.
I love the look of autumn. I find that even during bright, sunny days the light seems to have a hazy, tired quality. A few weeks ago while out to buy apples and pumpkins (a quintessential fall activity) I found myself mulling over the beauty of the landscape. The farm fields were mostly tawny gold and tan, their crops spent. The sky was a remarkably uniform silvery-gray. Between them the tree line was a gentle wash of earth tones. I don't know if it was a factor of weather or just my state of mind, but the changing trees seemed muted this year. I found myself picking through a Crayola box in my mind to identify the colors: goldenrod, cranberry, sepia, burnt sienna, ochre, bittersweet...and endless varieties of warm and cool grays and browns. Gentle and beautiful.
Time to stock-up on hot chocolate and candles and pull out the blankets and sweaters. It is getting darker. Time to build the cocoon.
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