The Call of Fall

The soft chattering of wet leaves under the wheels of my bicycle takes me a thousand miles and sixty years south to the boy I once was, riding another bike through rain-filled gutters and drifts of castoff leaves from other falls. It’s the same joy now as then, the same delight in the sounds and colors unique to this time of year.

Even the light is different.

I love autumn. It makes me feel part of a whole, a living process greater than the sum of the scattered parts of daily life. Not only does fall bring its stunning profusion of beauty, but also daily lessons in letting go, in coming clean in preparation for the deeper winnowing of approaching winter. And, of course, winter’s paring to the bone is, itself, in preparation for the budding promise of the new spring, which in turn presages the full flowering of the new summer before it all returns, once again, to the new fall.

The circle is unbroken.

My body resonates to that unchanging cycle of unchanging change. My cells revel in being small players in a vast symphony. My heart is lifted by autumn’s lesson of cherishing completely and relinquishing unconditionally in the same breath. My mind soars at the idea of the body of all creation—which includes all the bodies in creation—dancing the cycle of the seasons.

It’s so easy to get lost in our particular details, to spend so much time plugged in, hooked up, online, on guard that we develop a kind of myopia, losing track of what it means to be connected, that we are connected.

Autumn will have none of that. It shouts with every falling leaf that there is a rhythm and cadence, a melodic line and harmonic structure to what we see, to how we breathe, to where we walk or work or ride our bike. Fall invites us to open our eyes, not just to what’s out in front of us, but to the matching part that’s inside of us. It invites us to pause our insistence that we’re different and separate and prone to reciting, “I don’t dance,” and instead to recognize that we are, in fact, dancing right now. Together.

It’s a lesson worth repeating. Daily, if possible. But at least once a year.