Not too Late to Savour Autumn
When I first read these words from Jeanette Winterson I was struck by their beauty. Catch the full piece here. It’s not too late to savour Autumn!
Animals in autumn readying for winter will store what they need, just as bulbs and nuts and seeds are microstores that carry forward the coming crop. The fall time, the fallow time, the dead time are not wasted time; they are waiting time, which is very different. We have got into a crazy world of instant and always. The fashion is for “on demand”, which is as far away from the order and economy of the natural world as it is possible to be.
And “on demand” is not how happiness happens. “Instant” is not how to recover from sorrow. “Always” allows neither change nor variety. What autumn offers back to us is a model for living — it’s a harvest of many kinds; it’s how we learn to value the things that we really need, and to let go of what’s done.
The special beauty of autumn is not the springing exuberance of new growth, nor the ripeness of summer; it is a complex beauty, with melancholy in it. The richness of the sunsets, the shortening days, the intensity of colour hold the moment passionately because it is passing.
