As I watch each season of life pass me by, I am enamored by their personalities.
Spring flowers, in all their glory and magic, burst from nature’s womb and brighten the world. It is a glorious beginning and paints a canvass of fresh colors for all to see; the smells are most fragrant.
The arrival of the buds in the trees soon grow into beautiful mature leaves too and deliver a greenness to that canvass like no other. Those same leaves provide a canopy and shade beneath them from the bright distant sun during the season of summer.
Love birds begin to dance and chirp from those nests of spring into the warmth of summer.
And that life of a leaf is a mystery. It lives, breathes and exists solely as minute food factories for nature.
Have you ever thought about the life of a leaf?
It begins from its birth as a tiny shoot, grows and expands collectively into a valuable member of the earth’s kingdom, and so may each of us in this big world.
I suspect a human life might be compared to that very same process; from a tiny seed, a baby grows inside a womb and bursts from a dark room into a most promising place of light.
That tiny shoot grows and prospers in the sunlight much like you and I.
Each leaf has a story to tell from spring and summer.
We live our lives; each filled with a lifetime of events. Tears and smiles, joy and sadness, love and sorrow and more to come. The years go by, stories are told, generations are made, as life proceeds from a grand beginning.
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall” said the poet, Oscar Wilde.
And John Burroughs, a naturalist, added another view: “How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.“
Autumn is a time of reflection. A time to pause and think of those special moments of your living as those leaves fall gently from those trees that surround you.
As I think of the life of a leaf, I think about a classic old song by Nat King Cole. Remember him?
In 1953, he sang these lyrics (“Autumn Leaves”) in his sweet soft baritone voice:
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
The leaves of autumn can cause one to just sit and look out the window as those leaves of gold pass slowly by and you reminisce.
The autumn season of one’s life can rekindle an old flame and memory of love. The life of a leaf is likened to the life of each one of us.
As we live out our seasons, special memories are made just for autumn.
The life of a leaf from its bud’s arrival, to the many summers of joy and all the happenings along the way is just a little like the path that you and I have travelled from our very own beginning.
And some special seasons may include that lasting “love” of one’s life. Autumn is a time for memories and all the people who have made your life special.
I think that’s what Nat King Cole was thinking as he sang this song;
Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon, I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.
Each autumn leaf has a life of its own just like yours and mine. and as this special time of the year arrives, let us enjoy those leaves that fall from the trees and brighten our path with those chapters of love.
And I would leave you with this one final thought shared by Dodinsky from his work, “In the Garden of thoughts.“
“I hope I can be an autumn leaf, who looked at the sky and lived. And when it was time to leave, gracefully it knew life was a gift.“
That is my wish too!
