......a different view

Yogis,
Fall appears to finally be gracing us with her presence. My walks on the creek trails are now crunchy with fallen leaves. It’s also that time to be mindful of the black walnut balls scattered on the ground so as not to sprain an ankle, as well as those plummeting down from above with such force that I swear they could knock you out if they hit you just right.

My garden too suddenly looks fall like. The colors are changing and flower heads browning. The decline and inevitable death of this year’s plants has begun in earnest. Everything looking a bit worn and tattered.

There is an impulse that wells up to begin ‘tidying up’. To clip off the bug eaten leaves, remove the spent flowers and pull up the tired annuals. Wanting to leave only what is green, alive and vibrant. As humans we don’t tend to do well with the signs of death. Perhaps in some way it reminds us that we too will have our fall. Pulling back our own wrinkles and covering our age spots.

These last few days I have gone out to nature with my camera to look at death from a different view. To see if even in dying I can find the beauty. What I found was perfect…….. 

I walked quietly and without purpose allowing my eyes to move slowly from thing to thing, watching my mind judge and then exhaling to allow those preconceptions to fade. Seeing everything with new eyes. Seeing the world exactly as it is. It began with a leaf chewed through leaving behind an intricate design of shapes and swirls, like an artist’s stencil.

The sunflower’s petals now more like colorful streamers, her head still faces skyward. The crowd of black eyed susans clearly demonstrating how they came by their name and butterfly weed seeds carried as if on wings. A cracked open beech nut (which means a happy squirrel) like a sculpture.

Down at the creek the brown leaves lying beneath the water’s edge look like a well-planned painting. The echinacea flower appears dried and dead until you look very closely and realize that instead what you are seeing are the waiting seeds, each one holding the potential of a whole new life.

Even in the house there is beauty in the falling if you stay open to it. Red roses that had brought us such joy during teacher training began to wilt and bow their heads. I snipped them off the stems and have them in a bowl as a centerpiece on the table. Eventually their dried petals will add color and scent to my bath salts.

And by allowing the natural life cycle to occur without my intervention, the birds and small animals know they will find food and shelter in the brown of my garden. Nature doing her job well.

Life holds beauty in each and every stage…..if you take a different view.

Seeing the perfection,
SARAH