“There is a time in the last few days of summer when the ripeness of autumn fills the air, and time is quiet and mellow.” - Rudolfo Anaya
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“There was a hint of spring in her sole green eyes, something summery in her complexion, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk.” - Toni Morrison
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Autumn comes for all of us. It is the season that punctuates our lives with a needed reminder that our physicality has an end date. Wisdom dictates that we live into the reality of this notion with a strident, yet noble passion, and attend to our various needs accordingly. The flora in our most fertile regions will experience that season when their leaves and petals fall off. The symbols of their innate fecundity will succumb to a natural exhaustion that returns them to the ground from which they drew succor. And in that ground they will become nourishment for the good earth that nurtured them.
As with the flowers and the trees and the grass, we will experience the various seasons as they come and go in our own lives. The exuberance of Summer will give way to a time of harvest in which we, if we are wise, will prepare for the somnolence of Winter. Autumn is the time of harvesting. In this season we will reap what we have sown, uproot that which was planted; and return to the soil around us that which this good earth needs to replenish itself in preparation for Spring. And so the cycle of our life together goes on… Us and the good earth.
A meaningful and sustainable Livity requires that we attend to the needs of our own fecundity, and that we give due regard to the need of our mother Earth to renew herself. And what, you may ask, is this Livity of which I speak. Livity is a coinage of Rastafarian lingua. It speaks to the concept of a righteously cohesive existence. Essentially it is the realization that a common energy or life force conferred by the Creative process exists within, and flows through all people and all living things. The consciousness of a meaningful livity leads us to recognize the essential importance of the various times of our lives.
There is a time to work; and a time for vacation. There will be a time to embrace; and a time to be alone. A time for conversation; and a time for reflective silence. A time to get; and a time to give back. A time for others; and a time for self. There will be opportunities to heal others; and a time to submit ourselves for healing. We look forward to a time to feast; and we embrace the time to fast. A time for sweets; and a time for the bitters that we need to purge us of the overindulgence that dulls our senses. We should live into the times of our lives as our needs direct, and as Wisdom dictates.
Yes, Autumn comes… And when it does we should duly facilitate the changes and the change of pace that it ushers in. In this season we harvest the fruits of our labor, and then take a deep existential breath as the leaves fall off to replenish the good ground from which they drew succor. Let us embrace the break from Summer’s exuberance, prepare for the coming of Winter’s dormancy, and look forward with a quietude of attitude and spirit to the resurrection that Spring is a witness to.
The many technological advances that allow us to continue our routine with very little regard for the climes of our lives must never become excuses for ignoring the times of our lives. There is an exhilarating meaningfulness of which we must not deprive ourselves as we witness the changes our planet goes through in the course of its journey through time and space. When we conscientiously engage in that journey with this wonderful blue marvel, we will realize the twin benefits of an expansion of mind and spirit, and a noticeably welcome enhancement of our physicality.
The combination of the ecological and the ontological essence and impact of Autumn is perfectly captured in the following quotes from Rudolfo Anaya who is considered one of the founders of the canon of contemporary Chicano and New Mexican literature, and Toni Morrison the critically acclaimed American novelist.
Reflecting on the obvious changes that come with the autumnal equinox Anaya emotes:
“There is a time in the last few days of summer when the ripeness of autumn fills the air, and time is quiet and mellow.”
The succinct poetic power of Anaya’s reflection is undeniable. It captures in a way that we can taste and feel, a wonderfully enchanting aspect of this season. To connect with the powerfully meaningful notion in his reflection we only have to go outside with open mouths, receptive ears, and eyes and minds unconstrained by thoughts of normality.
Morrison, writing about what makes a human beautiful in her novel The Bluest Eyes, renders this rhapsodic soliloquy:
“There was a hint of spring in her sole green eyes, something summery in her complexion, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk.”
Ultimately what makes us beautiful as humans is the presence and expression of a real sense of connectedness between us, and the earth, and each other in our daily lives. Beauty is that presence which expresses all that is wonderful about us and the world. It is more than just a look. Beauty is a certain vision of Life that radiates as an observable loveliness of being… .
The expressed ripeness of Autumn that fills the air, and the rich autumn ripeness in our strides, are witnesses to the existential continuum between ourselves and a beautifully bounteous Earth that we are so blessed to be endowed with. Autumn is a season for reflection. It is a wonderful moment in time during which we can develop and articulate a viable livity in the many spaces and relationships that we occupy.
This beautiful multicolored marvel called Earth is non-accidentally our home. It is that place in time and space where we train ourselves for our destiny in eternity. We are affected by her contractions and her expansions. We are enlivened and grown by her sun. We are pulled to and fro like the tides by her moon. She lives in us even as we live in her. She is us… and we are her. The seasons beckon us to be more aware of the connection between us and her.
And so Autumn comes for all of us, as it does for our Mother Earth. Its ripeness fills the air. In this season time passes quietly and with a wonderfully pronounced mellowness. There is a hint of Spring always reverberating in her aura. There is something summery in her reflection… And a rich ripeness in her stride through time and space… .
