Pause and Ponder

I live in Florida and my friend sent me this meme. Only we Floridians are allowed to share it. Happy Autumn, friends!!! Fall is so many people’s favorite season. The cooler (but not too cold) weather, the beautiful changing leaves (in most parts of the country), the comfy sweaters and sweatshirts, getting back to a little more structure, the pumpkin breads, and pumpkin lattes, and pumpkin pies and pumpkin cookies, basically the pumpkin everythings, wearing boots again, Halloween and Thanksgiving, football, the crispness in the air and the coziness of blankets . . . . . Fall/Autumn (I wonder which name she prefers?), no matter what you want to call this season, it is nothing short of sublime.

It’s not lost on me that I am in the autumn ripeness of my own life. Will I one day look back on my own life and say to myself, “The autumn season of my life was definitely my favorite.”? I don’t know. I do feel a deep richness in this stage of my life, like no other. I have shed a lot of things that no longer serve me, much like a tree sheds its leaves, and yet I still feel rooted and solid. I am experiencing the bounty of everything which I have worked towards creating in life. My family has grown up nicely and still remains quite close at heart. My relationships have matured and deepened. My writing fulfills my need for purpose. My spirituality feels naturally a part of my every day experience, like never before. I wonder if with each season, we get closer to God? Perhaps it is in that little sliver of eternity, within the holy meridian that divides winter from the start of spring – perhaps that is when we are One with God completely? Is this perhaps, what is meant by the circle of life? That’s what I like about this autumnal time in my life. I have the time and the energy and the physical health, in order to be able to ponder these ideas and many other things. Autumn gives us time to pause and to ponder. What a beautiful, glorious, colorful gift!!