Fallen branches rise from the creek bed like the sloughed off antlers of a deer, the ancestor, perhaps, of one bedded down now, deep in the woods, hiding from the hunters. I wish him good cover and safety for the season. The color of the fallen leaves that blanket the woods matches his pelt I see. Nature provides. I imagine him standing by these waters at dawn, drinking his fill, then disappearing. Let the hunters go home empty-handed. It is a great gift just to roam these banks. Let the creek’s peace be your prize for the day.
Between the last notes of the overture and the first movement of the next scene, a quiet descends. The earth sighs in contentment as she settles in to rest. The ten thousand leaves have fallen. Beneath the waters fish seek the depths. The woodland’s creatures snuggle in their burrows. Soon snow will come. You can catch its scent. Everything waits. What comes next is grandeur.
For all the wondrous variety that brings us such delight, for the orange of things and the green, for the moist and dry, the passing seasons, for earth and air and sea and sky and all the things to which they give life, let us give thanks.
And let us give thanks for thankfulness itself, and for hearts that can know its fullness.
Let us be open to joy and revelry, to the touch of a kind word, a caring glance. Let us sing the connections that bind us, one to the next, to the next.
Let us celebrate the morning and the bright dancing air. Let us applaud the firing neurons and the shooting stars. Let us make merry for the day’s music and the ears that collect its sound.
Oh, let us be glad and grateful for the endlessly streaming wonders, for the grand mystery of it all, and for our being in the very midst of it.
I wait for these, these sycamore leaves and oaks, the last to fall, some of the sycamores larger than my face, all of them larger than my palm, and so rich in color. This is the quilt’s top layer, the topmost shield against the snow, coming soon now, soon. But not today. Today is still mild, and the burnished umber of the fallen sycamores and oaks spreads itself beneath the tall trunks of the mighty ones who bore them. I breathe their fragrance, their songs rustling around my ankles as I walk.
I like waking to November’s fog, to the way it silently wraps itself around the trunks of the bare trees, the fallen ferns and leaves, filtering the light, caressing everything with its soft wings, as it gently whispers, “Wake, children; wake.
What do you think, love? It’s my winter look. Personally, I like the subtlety of it, the seeming neutrality, with depth and yet a sense of dance and humor. Flamboyance is so yesterday. This is me now. Bare bones. Take another look, sweetheart. Tell me what you think.
Twenty years from now, they say, we won’t need cars. No one will travel or need to, because everything will be virtual. I look at the oak leaves, pondering the idea that I may be among the last of this round of humans to experience actual nature. And so I walk and gaze with deepened reverence, and more than a touch of sorrow, watching the fall.
The geese are gone. They gathered their young ones and off they went, honking with joy, their strong wings lifting them in their great V formations, heading south. But this place still bears the feel of their presence. We leave our imprints on all that we touch. And standing here on the pond’s edge among the bleached reeds, I smile, remembering spring’s fuzzy goslings, marveling at the way they grew into elegance in a few short months, much like the swan in the fairy tale. A crow calls from a tree across the water. “Hear! Hear!” he says. “Yes,” I whisper to him, “I do,” as the sound of geese honking floats silently above the pond.
“Okay,” said November, washing the gold from the trees, spilling it all over the road and the lawn, “Enough of that. Now, let’s get down to business.”
It’s as if she has a switch of some kind that she flicks half-way through her stay. We’ve had our spell of magnificence. Now comes the rain, and the dark, and the cold.
It makes me want to hibernate deep in my cave, and not come back out until the berries are ripe.
I want the long green of summer, and its warmth and light.
I growl to myself. It all went away far too soon.
But just as I was thinking that and feeling like quite a crabby bear, my eyes fell on an index card that’s pinned above my desk.
“How easy can I let this be?” it says.
And all at once, I remember.
I love those words: “How easy can I let this be?” The moment they wash into my awareness, a kind of gentle softness flows through me. I remember that I can let this be easy: the rain, the dark, the cold.
What did I think I had to steel myself against? Why did I think it had to be hard?
“Easy” is just a state of letting-things-be, and being with them. And all you have to do to get there is to let go of your preconceptions of how things “should” be, or of wanting them to be different than they are.
When things seem hard, it’s because we’re reacting to an old movie in our heads instead of responding to what is real right now.
Right now, it is raining, and when I let myself be at ease with that, I hear the sound of the raindrops softly striking against my window pane and see them shimmer as they slide down the studio’s antique glass. They look a bit like jewels against the sketch of wind-blown woods behind them.
It’s cold out tonight. But when I am at ease with that and step outside, my skin feels awake and alive, and a fresh alertness brightens my mind. And when I come back inside, the warmth of the house wraps around me and welcomes me.
Easy lets you pay attention and to ride the moment’s flow.
Even when the moment holds pain, or regret, or sorrow, if you can put aside your resistance to it and allow it to be what it is, and allow yourself to experience it fully, you will bear it with so much more depth and grace.
Easy lets you discover the moment’s meaning. It points you toward what you are doing or could do, right now, easily.
Easy is a kind of listening – as if you are hearing a new sound. It’s listening to what is around you, and to what is within – and that is always new, for the world and you are ever-changing and this moment never was before. Easy allows you to embrace it and opens you to its wholeness and wonder.
Try it. With a sense of curiosity, just ask yourself, “How easy can I let this be?” and notice what happens.
On this gift of a day may the flowing hours with their sun-sparkled colors and rippling ribbons of sound, with their air kissing your face, its flavors teasing your tongue, with their perfumes of earth, and water and sky, on this very day, may this very hour bring your heart joy and contentment and peace.
