No it is not clichéd to write about Autumn repeatedly. Not when it bursts into your consciousness like it has this week. After weeks of rain, the weather forecast predicted sunshine and was right this time. The sun is bringing out all the wonderful colours of the season. Trees like Siberian Hawthorn and Maple have turned yellow, light orange, peachy pink, and a funny sort of undecided red. Give it two more weeks and they will turn ochre and russet and warm brown before leaving the safety of branch for the permanence of earth. And mulch henceforth to the new year.
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Photo Courtesy: Margit Varvik[/caption]
But let us stay here in the now, for now. A friend from Ghana says she loves autumn in Europe. With gleaming eyes she looks on all the colours bursting forth in the forests and hills and declares, “We never get to see God’s handiwork like this in Africa. Everything stays the same colour all year round – green in Winter, green in Summer, green in Autumn and green in Spring. I love autumn in the Northern hemisphere. It shows how creative God is!” What a refreshingly positive way to look at this season which actually sends many people into deep depression. Why depression because for them, Autumn, in spite of all its beauty, signals that the year is coming to an end. It signals death in a way, the death of the year, and the coming of the dark and cold months. It is so acute for those who give in to depression that even in the middle of the glowing beauty of nature in all its mellow fruitfulness, they let the mantle of gloom descend over them, and continue to wear it until Winter arrives. There are numbers of unreported suicides in winter or the beginning of the dark season. Okay enough of that too. The other fact is that some suicidal people easily find a reason to end it all at the end of autumn, and it sends researchers into a spin thinking it might be something to do with the season releasing some sort of death inducing vapours. Just speculation, no conclusion there.
If we get back on track, there is the wide expanse of clear, blue sky to be enjoyed. There is sun, and because it is not a constant, we must go out and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts. Half the population is heading for the hills to pick berries; blueberries that are more sour than sweet because there has been too much rain this summer, incredibly sour and bright redcurrant berries that sets your teeth on edge, and wild edible mushrooms. The mountains hold food for those who are not too lazy to gather them.
It’s a good thing that the life of the natural world is transitory: it demands attention from us, it insists we come out of our routines and enjoy it while it lasts. If it were not so fleeting, we would take beauty for granted. How tragic that would be.
