A season of worship
The raging, rapturous joy of Autumn mornings
The joy…..the JOY! Each year I somehow manage to forget exactly how much I love and adore Autumn.
How much it is, for me, a season of worship. The beauty of the ripeness that is starting to wither, the full circle as Spring’s blossoming fades and the quiet silence of Winter beckons, the grace in the decay, the willingness of nature to let go and be renewed.
Oh I don’t know, there’s just something about it that enchants me beyond sanity, that makes me want to fall on my knees and kiss the ground with devotion.
I walked into the forest this morning and my heart swelled so much I thought it would burst.
THIS is what makes me happy to be alive. THIS;
This sunlight dappling through the trees, these smells of musty succulence, these leaves sashaying gently through the air to fall softly on the still-warm earth.
Forest, river, buzzard-cries.
Small insects flitting round in circles in the sunbeams. The green - so many shades! The soft sound of the breeze in the treetops, the birdsong, the distant water pouring onwards towards the sea.
It fills me with a joy that I cannot ever really capture in words - a raging, rapturous joy that feels utterly overwhelming and deeply moving. In those moments, minutes, hours, I do not want for anything else; I could happily pass form this earth, peaceful in the knowledge that I died doing what I love most.
Nature, you see, is the love of my life. It always has been.
I love it with all my heart and soul, to the point of bursting. Overflowing with love and gratitude for it, the miraculous beauty of it.
And the river - dappled light reflected by the water dancing on the trees and the leaves….the tinkling sound of the water bubbling over the little weir, the yellow leaves gliding gently down to the surface…the sun - god bless it - shining through the trees, the light sparkling like diamonds as it flashes on the water…
The smell of Autumn is there already, just the first hint of it in the warm morning air, and good god it must be one of the best smells in creation.
I have not felt so in love, so peaceful and so grateful for a long time.
There hasn’t been space. And I’m still clearing, cleansing, letting go…my body slowly learning again what it once already knew - that I’m safe, that everything is alright, that I can relax, that I can trust.
The desire to live as a recluse on some wild land, simply and in a solitary manner, rises up in me again. So familiar. The ache of longing to spend my life just siting in nature, listening to her, enveloped by her.
I am so very enchanted by her songs.
So moved by her seasons.
I want nothing else.
In this moment that feels deeply true. And yet I know when I return to town, to my beloved, to my friends - to the world - that I will feel that wonderful embrace of companionship, community and culture that also nourishes me, albeit in a much more practical way.
I’m a 5/2 in Human Design, in case you know what that means; Heretic/Hermit. I need cave time by default. Real cave time, far away from civilisation. Alone. Regularly. As I continue to deepen my honouring of myself, integrating these two core aspects calls ever more loudly to me.
Onwards flows the river. Every so often, a few leaves fall at the same time, landing on the water and moving forward together like ducklings.
What beauty, what magic (I can feel it as real as rain), what wonder as I sit here and try to grasp the ungraspable truth of life.
It feels as though exactly this is what I am designed to do - to sit in wonder and marvel at the natural world, and be joyful.
We find ourselves again you know, here in nature. Because we are the same. Because of some version of mirror neurons, maybe; what we see around us gets translated into human terms and helps us make sense of ourselves and the world.
A glorious day indeed. A return to joy.
Might there be more?