THE MESSAGE OF AUTUMN

Some see the death of summer in the turning and falling of the leaves; the silent messenger of change ahead. Autumn, for some, is a time of mourning, a time of regret as the warmth of summer’s carefree days spent outside are left further behind with each shortening day. Dark, cold, wet days and long winter nights are ahead, at least in my latitude…

Even for those of us who anticipate the first signs of fall like a child anxious to return to school after being home all summer, there is still some truth to the mourning aspects of Fall. There is a sense of loss while we simultaneously embrace what lies ahead. Besides, how can we focus on the melancholy aspects of the season’s change when all around us Nature is at her best, sated with astonishing beauty and profusion that some travel for hundreds of miles to see?

Summer languishes on until the cobwebs betray the new chill in the morning air. Suddenly, their invisible presence is revealed. Weighty with drenching dew, they bear witness to a subtle change in the seasons. A spider is on every bush, a whole nation of them living side by side on the high wires and coming in at the first chance for more comfortable accommodations. Autumn is their season to shine, artists in their own right displaying enviable talent in the crisp dawn air. The splendor of their bejeweled designs adorned with iridescent sparkling dewdrops, opens the season of the natural world of art to the connoisseur of beauty.

The trees are heavy now with their gifts of life’s succulent fruits. Our efforts on their behalf are blessed with outrageous increase far out of proportion to our labors. But for years there was nothing; just the waiting to see if any of our hard work would bear fruit.

This orchard family whose intertwined roots have plunged deeper into the earth, reaching toward the very center of the planet if they could, worked madly below the surface with nothing of note to display above. Their potential remained unfulfilled. Yet they have withstood storm and cold, winds and rain, clinging together tightly below the ground giving stability and strength one to another. Their secret vocation in those first years of planting was work of another kind and we would be wise to learn of its lessons…coming from a strong foundation and hidden depths will ultimately support them well when they reach the potential they were created for.

Visiting the garden, the same abundance reveals itself. Fifteen raised beds are lavishly dressed in the colors of life, in health. Once again, such a response in relation to the work performed in the early springtime. Nature gives generously, like God; much more in return than we have given.

The Autumnal transition is a time of enigma, the great mystery of Nature - the impending death sleep of luxuriant growth and fruiting departing in a burst of magnificently condensed color. She asserts herself so loudly and deliberately into our busy days demanding to be seen and her generosity noted and ultimately reckoned within the kitchen. The bountiful harvest balances itself against our often monotone lives of desperate activity choosing to captivate us with the most passionate colors of the whole Universe.

Autumn is a time of passage into stillness, sleep and a form of death all the while coupled with sensuous oranges, rich deep reds and burnished gold; flaming sunsets painted on leaf canvases that capture the essence of a life lived well, with intention and purpose…..no mere fading on the vine but a promise spoken in the language of vibrant color of splendid rebirth in a season yet to come and the invitation to live with focused intensity today. The silent Voice of Autumn is crying out her belief in Life, in the wisdom and necessity of “deaths” along the way; her unshakable belief in living with a profound force of focused concentration on what is truly of importance here now and forever.

Paul of ancient scriptural texts is a man who understood and fully practiced a life of continual, unwavering commitment and intensity. His early training and education was impressive, rigorous, and disciplined. He lived seamlessly with the trajectory of his strong beliefs and inner convictions propelling his movement decisively toward his goals. His entire existence demonstrates the power of a life of undistracted pure focus, willing to die to some belief systems when those with more meaning and truth revealed themselves, replacing the errors and misguided tenets of the first early education.

Paul’s life reminds one of a strong spreading tree, unshakable, with a firm belief in life itself being lived for a higher purpose. He had a willingness to endure many “deaths” discovering his true path, not the one imposed on him by the dogma of the day. His refined beliefs were based on direct interactional knowledge of the One who revealed to him his purpose and destiny calling. Paul had the audacity to embrace his unique life story with passion unmatched by many even today. How many of us are on this trajectory living with this level of focus and undeterred intensity?

The greatest thing we can do here, the place where all progressive action springs from, is to be still. Again, the riddle. How is action born from not moving? “Everything is gestation,” Rilke says, “then the birthing”. God asks us to, “Be still and know that I am God.”

We attach much importance to the active workings of man; feeding the poor, giving time and money, sharing our faith….all this suggests movement and strength. Yet as a strong tree does much of its work under the dark cover of earth for many seasons, so it is with us. There is a time for everything. The wise look to nature and take their cues. Look first to the Creator and concentrate on building the foundation from which our great life’s work will inevitably come.

The surest course to a life lived with precision, intensity and focus is one spent in stillness, at the feet of the Master, absorbing deep Wisdom and listening for specific direction and learning the sheer pleasure of knowing the Source of all creativity and life. Making this connection, we realize we have no separation from His life, but are as intimately entwined with His life as the roots of singular trees are with each other and with the earth, as branch to trunk.

Einstein said, “I want to know the thoughts of God. All the rest are details.” This “knowing” God is born in silence before the creative God of the universe meditating on His character and beauty. It is nurtured by reading His letters and seeing His heart revealed in His dealings with man. The rest will follow as surely as the seasons, and they have their place; knowing God is the place of primacy.

One of the lessons of the time of transition then is the utmost intensity and passion in our life with God is gained in silence, sitting at His feet and learning to know who He is, learning to love Him with the intimacy of a lover and live with Him that way moment by moment. The privilege of this mentored and guided life by the One who created and understands the depths of our heart cannot be grasped. It amazes me to think of it. This is His intense love made visible as we lived potentiated lives, bearing abundantly.


In today’s world, the elderly are in a state of declining respect among many, sadly. Not so in all nations, but in America, yes. The aged are often overlooked for their wisdom, experience, talents and contributions as we pander to the young stars on our horizon. What a mistake as we overlook what we cannot often see; the most intense, focused work of life being accomplished in old age....

The message of Autumnal intensity is particularly for the aged, some of whom have no hope of the returning spring. Some, like the terminally ill young clients I work with, have their Autumn far sooner…The message of the heart of Autumn’s silent Voice is that the most important work is now at hand…do it with an intensity unmatched in former years when fully invested in the fray of life and perhaps being lured into the confusing goals of the world in general.

How can this force of concentrated non-action exist, with declines in mind or body with age or illness? It is simple. It is the exact quality of discovering that the most important act we can perform on this Earth journey is to sit at the feet of the Master, to know Him, to revel in His love, take deep pleasure His companionship and bring to Him all that are of concern while expressing gratitude and praise. If this was all we could do, it would be more than enough. I witnessed my father in law live with unimaginable stillness inside the message of Autumn’s powerful intensity and in that place of immobility achieve greatness.

Eugene was a family physician who used to do house calls with his little black bag. He got Parkinson’s disease and we were distressed to learn of it. He was so well loved and had served his community selflessly for so long. As the disease advanced, and blended with other diagnosis, he went to live in a nursing home owned by his family members. He had lost his wife of over 50 years by now. There was sorrow upon sorrow. His once stimulating, useful and active work life dissolved into being bedridden in a nursing home.

As his movements were gradually taken from him, his kind blue eyes and slow, barely audible speech were all that remained to reveal how much he still cared to participate, to serve and work at healing. He was far from surrendering. But he couldn’t even raise his hand to wipe his mouth with the frequent coughing. It was heart rending. Yet appearances can be so seductively deceiving…

Entering into his room was to enter into stillness itself, the stillness of a chapel. The air bore the weight of multitudes of prayers, much the same as one can feel the prayers that have ascended for centuries in ancient cathedrals. The TV which he watched much in his healthier years was now turned off, by his request. He had work to do… There was silence but it didn’t feel empty. He was no tree standing alone now. He had the company of unseen angels providing stability and support below the surface of our detection.

It was then that we realized he had entered into the most intense, serious work of his whole life- and probably the most spiritually profitable. He had healed bodies and birthed babies in his healthful years. In the his dying time, he healed spirits and lives with prayers that ascended constantly to heaven….We felt them. We feel them still….He was working in the unseen realm with all the focus, determination and intensity of the Apostle Paul himself. And accomplishing more than he ever did on earth, we suspect.

Eugene was, himself, becoming the essential combustion of Autumn’s glory, his later years of illness being powerfully productive as he submitted to the increasing stillness of paralysis. His eyes were becoming a brighter blue; illuminated from an inner light much as the portraits Rembrandt painted where the only source of light in the room came from the people, themselves.

In his years of health, he was quiet and reserved. In his death he had the glory of the maples that drape the hills of Vermont in orgasmic pulsations of color. The essence of him shone from those unforgettable penetrating eyes fresh with the light of heaven. We knew he was full of life, while his body labored to accomplish its transition toward death.

I can still see him in my mind’s eye, when we visited, bent over his old worn Bible filling his mind and spirit with strength that would burst forth vividly when reached his own personal Autumn transition. We were witnessing it now, his great labor in incredible stillness. The enigma of nature. The lesson of great trees gaining power in winter sleep and of their vibrancy in the Autumn that precedes it.
Earthly impediments like his Parkinson’s, and seeming tragic situations such as the death of his lover and being confined to his bed in a nursing home became the seed bed that encapsulated his deepest, most profound work. What we viewed as distressing he completely transformed into the prime of his life.

This Autumn in the Pacific Northwest mountain village where we live, all of nature is heavy with fruit, lavish with the artistry of the Master’s brush, celebrating itself and the Creator. What about us? It is time for examining details of our existence, for introspection as the days become shorter, taking time to see to things we’ve neglected all summer in favor of a broader more casual approach. A time to take stock and measure our ceaseless labor, or idleness against the reality of life in the final analysis. Busyness balanced against perfect stillness and the great work that can emerge from it; and the ultimate harvest of each.

The transition into Autumn is a time to make sure we are in union with God’s destiny calling for our unique life. He is endlessly creative, as the natural world reveals, and He longs to work in partnership flowing His desires through the willing channel of our lives using own particular gifts magnified with Spirit power.

Only this work is of value; the fruits whose Originator and origination are outside our own abilities. And in perfect balance, the passionate colors in the leaf remind us to concentrate our essence in stillness before Him, sitting and waiting on Him, being absorbed in Him. We learn, like Eugene, to banish all nonessentials from our lives and concentrate all our affinities on the nurture of eternal labor, even in intense stillness. Therein lays the great mystery and our greatest power.

Listen to the unspoken message of Autumn’s Voice of passion and intensity. First the seed, buried in obscurity. Then the tender years of the sapling, quite insignificant yet but growing in grace and strength in the dark nurture of earth; gaining unseen support in the intertwining roots of neighboring trees creating more strength than if alone - a whole community of caring support invisible to those that only look on the surface. Finally, the outrageously abundant fruiting flowing into the last ardent burst of creative expression. Then the stillness of sleep.

Our lives are short. I am praying, like Moses, for the ability to number my days. I want to hold with incredible clarity the focus of my existence, distilled into the essence of my life – that is, the knowledge that we are here to know God, and to express His creative beauty, love and care for others and for the universe through our union with Him.

As the branch to the trunk, we receive all that is of value and importance ultimately by sitting at His feet in admiration, love and stillness allowing Him to flow through us like life giving sap. Then our lives will match the intensity of the trees of late Autumn, radiating with indescribable glory to the end.