Sun Coming Up

The sun is just coming up, rising slowly over the old ash trees in the garden. The day promises to be sunny but very cool — there is a brisk wind, and the entire garden around me seems to be in motion. If I close my eyes and listen, rather than just watching the days cruise on by, there is poignant sighing everywhere around me, a tacit admission that autumn has arrived and the time of the long nights is not far off.

The last rainfall created splendid collages of raindrops, weeds and spider webs, and it crafted a rosy silence that echoed the tint of the falling maple leaves everywhere. Much as I love working in collage, I could not have equalled yesterday's natural creations if I had tried to do so.

Life here is something of an riparian undertaking in autumn, and I sometimes feel as though I am living on the banks of a great river. September rains turn the driveway of the little blue house in the village into a richly textured molten river flowing bronze, pink, blue and gold. The rivers go dancing through the gutters and they sing a burnished song as they go.

From time to time, I have a deep craving for silence in autumn, a passionate need to entertain stillness and listen to what the days and the season are telling me — yesterday was certainly one of those days. I said little, raked oceans of leaves, readied the garden for winter, listened to the wind in the eaves and watched the leaves in motion. Enfolded in such quiet days and Gaia's ever changing patterns, one can sometimes sense great events in motion, but these small happenings are wonders in their own right.