Autumn: Celebrate Its Beauty

Welcome Autumn! There are two seasons which seem to top out as favorites....they are autumn and spring, not counting winter and summer.

Autumn is replete with color and aromas and the sense of getting ready for another year to end. It is that in between time...between the lazy days of summer (if ever that were true) and the season of holidays, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, the New Year (and, of course my birthday, which everyone celebrates on December 31).

There is something so remarkable about autumn....lyrics have made it so, movies have captured its visage, particularly when shot in the northeast, travel beckons to places and sites that embody the flavors of autumn: pumpkin soup and pie, cranberry, maple syrup, spiced cider and fresh apples, slabs of bacon, smores, cooked out of doors, calming pit fires inviting friends to gather round, tell stories, laugh and just watch the fire.

Then, as laughter subsides and heads nod and shoulders become pillows and the twinkling stars begin to catch our eyes, we know that all is right and good with the world. Isn't it refreshing to come upon an occasion when that feels true, if only fleetingly? Isn't it remarkable, in the face of all that is wrong around us, that we can take a momentary break and breathe in the primordial silence that reminds us just how long the world has been around and how many times it has gone around?

So, from now until December 21, share your autumn with as many of your acquaintances and family as is possible. Salute every morning with deep, invigorating gulps of autumn air. Watch the changes around you...the leaves, the crispness of the morning; embrace the one you love; keep each other warm as twilight falls; pile an extra blanket on; sleep the sleep of kings and queens.

Live as if the rest of life is autumn until winter comes and then spring....and then live those days with the same invigorating spirit as you do autumn. After all, the seasons are the only life we have....don't count the days till its over, just squeeze all you can out of every one of them.