Everything about autumn can be spiritual

Kentucky Coffee Tree leaves near St. Joe’s Lake at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana.

Something spiritual is all around us.

If one lives in Indiana and in many places in the northern hemisphere, everything about autumn can be spiritual – spiritual in the sense of the possibilities presented to pull us into someone greater than ourselves, some mystery beautiful, intricate and inspiring.

The color of leaves in Indiana’s autumn is usually vibrant shades of gold, orange, red, yellow and fading shades of green. A painter’s palette of colors easily recognized as autumn’s signature. Fallen leaves crunch under our footsteps; the piles of fallen leaves create mounds children jump into and out of, scatter and regather for more jumping and laughter.

Then Jesus said: allow the children to come to me. … Don’t forbid them because it is to people like these that the kingdom of heaven is given. (Matthew 9:14)

Farmers harvest the yields of their faithful labor and the gifts of nature – rain, sun, temperatures, life-giving seeds.

As tomatoes make their last stand against cold weather, apples ripen for the picking; homemade apple cider and apple butter appear in family kitchens, farmers’ markets and roadside stands.

In the morning say in your heart: O God, here is another day given me to love and serve you. Be glad of it.
-St. Mother Theodore Guerin

Birds fly instinctively to winter homes. Squirrels scamper and scurry as they gather acorns, seed pods and black walnuts for their autumnal feasts.

We are here on the planet only once and we may as well get a feel for the place.
-Annie Dillard, Teaching A Stone To Talk

After harvest, pumpkins and various shapes and sizes of gourds show up on house porches and table displays. Chrysanthemums add splashes of color in so many places – seemingly their only purpose to delight the eye.

I try to remember…when autumn flares out at last, boisterous and like us longing to stay – how everything lives, shifting from one bright vision to another …
-Mary Oliver, A Poet’s Nod to Autumn

The autumnal equinox marks the “exact moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above Earth’s equator” (timeanddate.com).  Imagine – the exact moment …

The heavens declare the glory of the Creator; the firmament proclaims the handiwork of love.
-Nan C. Merrill, Psalm 19; Psalms for Praying

Summer fades as autumn splashes us with colors, aromas, refreshing weather, playful moments, wonderful food and so many reasons to simply stand and look and wonder.

Let’s remember to look, listen, smell, taste, and feel autumn.

Something spiritual is all around us.