The seasons are turning. October gives way to November. For past several weeks we have received epic amounts of rain, hail and snow falling on the parched and dusty New Mexican plain and mountains. The first snow on Mount Baldy fell last night as the sugarcoated mountains shone against the deep blue backdrop of a perfect New Mexican morning.
It could’t be more welcome—even with thunder lightning and hail, repleted with tornado touching down in Midtown on Saturday night—after months and months of severe drought. Black Bears have been making appearances all around the city as mountain lions, cougars and bobcats make their nocturnal prowls, as well. The drought has caused incursion after incursion from the national forests into populated areas in search of water and food. Hopefully these rain will cause an abatement of such sojourns, at least until the bears retreat for their long winter’s naps in the mountains.
The ubiquitous Chamisa—with their noxious scent and tons of pollen-causing eye irritations—are completing their season of blossoming. Alas, the challenges of High Desert living and the seasonal change make for some surprising outcome. The leaves have turned—the bright yellow Aspens and some reds, the Chamisa along with the purple Asters and Russian Sage have weighed in. New Mexico turned green overnight just before the first frosts and snow at lower elevations. All will be brown or denuded by mid-November. However the cloud formations in the mornings and evenings of autumn and winter are startling and dramatic.
Poet, T.S. Eliot, wrote: “In the end is my beginning. (The Four Quartets)” It is evident that in the Northern Hemisphere that Autumn has begun; masking one kind of an ending. Such changes are evident as the hummingbirds have departed for their biannual trek to the South as the winter birds are arriving. Feeders set, I’m for their voracious appetites.
Among our New Mexico winter birds are the robins who are roosting all around me before heading north next spring. Nature fulfills herself, bringing ripeness from seed completing what she began last winter. There is promise though even in the midst of such decline.
Grandchildren and great children head off to school. Some for the first time, as we move slowly—sometimes achingly and painfully—off the scene. With autumn there is nostalgia for other autumns. Somehow as the light gives way to the darkness of winter, the awareness of passing beauty, passing youth, the memories of unrepeatable summers and springs are bare reminders of “the way things were”, just months or weeks or was it years ago?
Into this season of loss, there is perhaps a deeper awareness of the transitory nature of life, of seasons of wonder and despair, of joy and sorrow. The golden quaking aspens have faded with their ethereal light, which last mere moments, followed by the rapid fall of leaves, after the freeze.
The trees now stand naked before us, shorn of their golden moments of glory. Likewise, into this season we come reluctantly to conclude that everything, no matter how permanent we believed it to be, is passing away: moments, hours, weeks, years, seasons. While we seemingly nod in agreement, we deny it in our daily living clinging to the shining moments and safe places, only to discover that their shine has lost something and that safety is often illusory.
Nonetheless, when the last leaf of autumn falls and cold settles in over the empty fields, hope will mix with the darkness. Mary Oliver summarizes this way:
Song for Autumn
Don't you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the nothingness of the air and the endless freshets of
wind? And don't you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for the birds that will come - six, a
dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don't you hear the goldenrod whispering
goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags its many tails. And in the
evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.
With all of our experience and understanding, knowledge and practical application we find ourselves in autumn as those wrapped—even momentarily—in awe. The subtle, but inexorable change overtakes and sweeps us into new dimensions, reminding always that even in the midst of the eternal, transiency is still our lot.
The American poet, Denise Levertov offers these images which easily apply to these days of autumn, but more completely to the final changes of a lifetime:
The Depths
When the white fog burns off,
the abyss of everlasting light
is revealed. The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black fir trees are flakes
of white ash in the world’s hearth.
Cold of the sea is counterpart
to this great fire. Plunging
out of the burning cold of ocean
we enter an ocean of intense
noon. Sacred salt
sparkles on our bodies.
After mist has wrapped us again
in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.
I hope that word also translates to upcoming midterm elections. We need to voice our unconditional disgusts with manner in which our democracy is being dismantled. I trust that no matter which side of the political spectrum you may be on, there is both time and space for improvement and care for the downtrodden and needy, the stranger, the immigrant and the single mom trying to hold a family together.
May this season bring you joy and delight, contemplation and peace, but most of all another chance to engage with the substance of life.
