Seasons and Cycles

Autumn is here, a time when nature calls out, demanding our attention as trees turn vibrant colors. There’s still much greenery in New York City, with trees showing only the slightest autumnal hues as of yet—greens a little faded, and a few yellow leaves emerging here and there. But every day brings perceptible changes, and this time of year offers a reminder of how the only constant is change. Trees slowly change colors, new migrating birds enjoy a stopover during their travels south, nighttime arrives a little earlier each day, and the air becomes cooler. And so too, we change a little every day. As Thoreau noted, “the seasons and all their changes are in me”.

Over the next few weeks the trees will exhibit spectacular colors and then will be bare, their leaves having fallen to the ground. This time of year is rich in metaphor, perhaps a sense of the passing of one’s prime and a hint of mortality:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
--From Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare
 
But need that really be our perspective? What we know is that nature exists in cycles, as do we. From autumn and winter come spring and summer, new life emerging in continual cycles of birth, life, death, and regeneration. There will be new springs and new summers, and with this time of heightened awareness of change comes awareness of potential and expectations, of new opportunities, with each season offering its gifts.

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