The winds blow long, and loud, this November. The forest moans with their intensity, as they move in and through the trees, in gusts that grip and blow the remaining leaves away from their summer homes. The wind pulls the limbs, this way and a that, blowing with insistence. This wind that arrives with graying skies, reaches in and stirs my own fire, bringing restlessness, and presenting a challenge to find stillness, grounding, and quiet in this sound and fury.

I seem to crave the stillness of the trees, who remain rooted, tall, proud and bare-limbed. In their stillness they hold a trueness and an authenticity, ready for what may come.

The skies are gray.
The cornfields are brown, the forests damp and cool. 
The spotted salamanders creep into their tumbled leafy homes under the duff.
The mammals gather the foods for winter stores,
The deer call their family from the forest's edge.
The flocks of geese turn south in unfolding strands of family groups, leaving behind the frosty waters here.

I watch the flying groups of geese from the mountain top. This attention holds me. It helps me ground and return to center. I watch to gain perspective. This perch, here on top of the world, is a place to which I often return, to discover and maintain an inner cohesion; it is a place of landing. From this position, I witness those who travel, ahead of the cold winds to come. Ahead of the trials we will encounter. I witness the changing clouds, and also the ever present sun, stars, and planets in their passages across the skies.

In this practice, I purposefully, attentively also count the flying individuals as they pass. Individual, by individual, like conjuring a spell, a prayer, a gift to help them in their passage. I offer this prayer to them in hopes the gift may help them on their journeys ahead, and aid their swift return home. I know, they know, we know, that for now, winter winds and weather must blow. We ready for winter and the snows to come.

A friend from the mountain said , "Change is in the air and we witness it. All we can do is witness. All we can do is watch and count and ponder what not so long ago was, what now is, and what in future may or may not be."

The shifting of season from Autumn to Winter heralds a time of dreaming. Before the magic of new life can return, we must dream. And ponder, what we know and believe. Review our paths, and where we hope to go. And when we awake, when Spring returns, then it will be time to begin the dance of bringing the magic of new life. I will be ready.

For now, I collect my tools for the wisdom months: book, humor, art, pen, tea. Trusting that soon the thread, the one to lead us forward on the path, the one that will reveal itself as quiet knowing, the one to help us find our way will arrive. I will try to be like the trees, grounded, ready, still, and standing in unadorned bareness.
Ready for the winter snows and storms. Ready for what may come.

I wish you were here right now,
to feel, and see the quality of this light streaming down and in. I know you would love it, sitting here. You would sit, with me, in this quiet morning, absorbing the light that flows and tumbles over the doorstep, in and through the windows, and on and into the places within. I wish you were here, to watch this light falling all over itself, to land at our feet.

Regardless, of the autumn cold outdoors, I open the door wide, with the intention of allowing all light to flow freely over the threshold, and into the deep places within. I hold this spot for us, watching this light arrive in waves, with all colors mingling, warming all they touch.

While the home fires burn bright, and the Autumn temperatures cool, at the threshold, I feel both~ the coolness, and the warmth. Sometimes the heat is greater, sometime the coolness makes me shiver, as they eddy together in unseen currents.
I face outdoors, so I feel the warmth on my back, and the coolness on my face. And the light of the sun, most brilliant of all, weaves and intertwines with and through the eddies, warming me most of all, adding to the magic, and bringing a sense of something beyond understanding.

There is a dance at play here that keeps me at this doorstep. I do not hear the music. I feel it, I feel a deep quiet, a quiet you notice at sunrise. Or one you can hear after the wind blows. A silence so penetrating, that is feels as though there is a sound.

I would hold you here in this pervasive streaming light, that comes in, and through the doors all the way to my heart. We would listen together to the song the waves make, letting our bodies dance in a new light.

(More writing on Venus muse and photos on Heart to Eye about Autumn and light and more)

This prayer came from the bronze-leaved trees of the hills a day before shedding the rest of their leaves. It is a prayer offered to all trees.  Before the great white covering of the land arrives:

Thank you for teaching, in your living, of vulnerability and

Stripping ourselves bare for all to see

In anticipation of great change

And hopes of, as of yet, unimaginable regrowth.

Once more transforming the air, water, sun and earth to form.

I am touched by the trees' vulnerability, pride and honesty standing in their shapes.  Those of us who live in the north invariably have a moment in the year when we realize that we love this time of year when one can see the shapes of the trees outlined in the sky.  Thinking about the losing of the leaves, the color, the music they make, the companionship and the covering seems much harder than the reality of it.  Once they have gracefully, joyfully, shall I add gleefully, fallen, it is a gift to see the naked tree in its raw authenticity.

Now, is a pause, a moment between, a moment for which I am grateful.  We rest, we sense, we listen and hear, knowing that change on many levels is upon us.  It is the pause before speaking, the pause before action, the pause before knowing, the pause before transformation.  Soon the winter months of the northern country will call for a different voyage.

I wish you all a moment to notice and enjoy this pause.