november

If all the skies were sunshine,

Our faces would be fain

To feel once more upon them

The cooling splash of rain.

Henry Van Dyke

The days are shorter and colder and wetter and much more time is spent indoors. It is a time of adjustment to the new and duller palette of late autumn. Yet, even so, there is beauty in these tones and the countryside stripped of much of its foliage tells a more truthful tale. There is an honesty in the landscape as it lies bare and empty and exposed. A time for introspection.

orange

Temperatures are dropping steadily and the ground is frosty white in the morning.

Yesterday we emptied the garden boxes, cut the herbs and hung them to dry. The kale is the lone survivor of subzero nights.

But the calendulas still bloom merrily. We've saved some of the seeds and we cut a huge bunch of them to brighten up the table inside.

It has become the season of being mostly indoors and the bright orange is cheering.

sliver moon

The stars were spectacular this morning,

and the sliver of a moon amazingly bright against the black sky.

It was one of those wonderful crisp nights when the darkened portion of the moon is visible.

reds

Identity?

How do we identify ourselves?

Somehow these labels we attach to each other should be placed in a hierarchy. Nurse, photographer, dancer, teacher, landscaper, doctor, mechanic, athlete, preacher, student, jogger, hiker, mom, dad, sister, brother, daughter, son, musician? Which label is most significant? Often we give our lives meaning by what we accomplish and by what we hope to achieve.

Where does the label "christian" fit in? Does it trump all the other things that we have ascribed to ourselves? Or does it only show up somewhere tucked between our various identities. Or is it so woven into the fabric of our person that it colours all these different parts of who we are?

Surprisingly some of the poppies in the wildflower patch are still blooming

though light snow swirled and October has come to an end.

today

Today the family was fed and clothed and warmed,

little ones taught, the new shed was painted.

The sky was lovely, its beauty there for the taking whenever I chose to look up.

A lot of pondering can be done with a paintbrush in hand...

I just don't have any words to show for it...

with opa

in autumn

In the autumn they fall and float on october breezes

downwards to the soil from which they stretched

in the spring of their existence,

to return to the dust.

The autumn leaves are most colorful,

most striking and most memorable.

Perhaps it is also their short-levity that

makes them so noteworthy.

Perhaps it is when we are faced with autumn days in our loved ones we realize how deeply we appreciate and love them and the moments seem more precious.