Change of Season

The houseplants have come indoors after spending their summer in the great out-of-doors. The hot-weather vegetable plants--cucumber, tomato, pepper--are done for. Even the flower bed is looking rather piqued.

The change of season has been quietly announcing itself every day, but all of a sudden, change is quite noticeable--in the browning leaves, the cooler weather, the shorter days.

The body-mind also changes moment-to-moment, but we somehow don't "see" the change until it is marked. A girl blooms into a woman; a boy grows taller than his parents. Marriage, birth of a child, menopause, grandparenthood. Then the golden years turn into old, old age.

The garden has reached its old, old age, still creeping along, producing a few flowers, a few vegetables, until the life force is overwhelmed by the elements--cold, wind, lack of light--and dissipates by giving its own heat, its own earth body, its own 70% water, its own breath of air back to the earth.