09/14/2026
There’s something wildly wonderful about the end of Summer gently sweeping her hand in a soft gesture to welcome the guest that is arriving.
Late-season brown-eyed Susan‘s, the tiny white and purple asters still perky, the golden rod illuminating even the ‘greyist’ day. There is still green everywhere though the tips of leaves have started to tell the story of change.
The light has softened and the heaviness of a muggy July into August has lifted with weight of not being able to move for the heat. ��Now in halfway through September, Queen Anne‘s Lace has started folding up her beautiful white skirts, quietly collapsing into a dusty old ball left too long in the attic… she will surely stick to my trouser legs if I step too close.
There is something in this morning breeze – relief, melancholy, delight, celebration! It is too delicious to waste a moment thinking about all of the endings – there will be plentiful time for that when the leaves burnish colours that only Autumn knows, on their way to feed the soil.
The red leaf spinning wildly towards me in front of the deep blue sky speaks of an eager maple, her top already flaming with the delight of a last hurrah. She seems happy to be the first and goes joyfully, willingly, leading the way for those that know they must let go but think it should be a sad day. It can be a wild dance of delight, she offers.
The higher up the mountain I go the more colours whisper their secrets. “We are not afraid “.
Sometimes the wind roar is so steady I’m sure there’s a stream of cars moving up the highway of the mountain, then I remember there is no highway except for those who live in the trees and the bushes, underground, in caves, in nests, in the quiet ponds amongst these lightly tread people paths.
When Autumn approaches and there’s still warmth to be found in the sun’s rays as they reach me, even dead stumps sticking up out of a mucky pond look beautiful.
One last turn up the mountain road and, alas, only the startle of hideous clawing machines can ruin this peace even in their quiet before they start work… Oh to rage against these machines.�
But I check my anger, my rage, my indignation… because? Because Alex, sitting up on his big cutter-downer tree killer was smiling so warmly, and telling me of the most amazing encounter he had with a big moose, and the love in his eyes when he closed them and took in the same warm breeze.
��So we chatted, and I asked hard questions still slightly tinged with my outrage, but softening to the human next to me, the good man, the one who also loves in his own way this place. And though I turned around because I no longer wanted to go up, I was not as consumed by feelings that couldn’t and wouldn’t change the face of the forest.
I was instead uplifted by the thread that we share, and the deepest wishes that THIS will be enough, integrating love into the pain.
It feels most important, not how we see what is happening but how we keep hearts open to what is happening and to one another, leaving room to change the inner world, leaving room to change the outer world. ��
There is no way to know if that matters to Alex, as I hear the big machines still echoing over the treetops down in my little Sanctuary, and yet I know it matters to me that I chose peace.
Blessings to all we beings on our journeys.
