All Hallows' Eve

Do you see it ...

can you hear it ...

can you smell it?




The season is ripe with the sensations of the harvest!

Summer is now turning into fall again and I am feeling the chill of the north wind on my face. It will soon be time to face the winter darkness once more. But fortunately before the ultimate cold and dark of winter descends there is this magical season of dappled sunlight and frosty color to bask in. A time to collect our thoughts and the experiences from the last three seasons and bring them together into a warm and comforting quilt, a quilt that will both protect us from the cold days ahead as well as nourish our souls through the long winter’s night.

Halloween was and is a favorite time for Jack and I. A time of magic. A night of gouls and goblins but also a time to gather with friends and toast the begining of another season of holiday, childhood fantasy. This is a time when we put our reasoning behind to fly with our hopes and dreams, to enter into a world without the everyday constraints and complications.

It is at this time that my thoughts turn much as the suns angle and become reflective of times past. It is once again time to gather and sort them so that they can be carefully stored in the memories of my mind, yet still kept accessible for times to come when I will need them once again to feed on and gain sustenance from them.

Maybe we should consider the autumn "trick or treat" as an everyday occasion ...

Autumn Memories and More ...

Don’t you find that the more you try to forget the more you seem to remember? Like cleaning out a closet, the more you throw away the more there seems to be. This last year has been a gigantic clearing house for me and it isn’t over yet. What makes it so very different however is the fact that unlike clothing or other tangible objects which can be sent or given away, memories not so much so. Nor do I think that I would really want that anyway. What are we if not our memories? What would we be without them? A blank canvas devoid of shape or color, a mound of raw marble laid waste in a studio, a life form awaiting its birth.

I can tell you that life is beautiful, but that is in the moment. Or I could tell you that you are beautiful but that is my perception. I could merely say that memories are beautiful because they last forever and only improve with age like a fine wine. Memories are magic. They are the song of our souls. They sing to us of other times when life was newer and less tarnished. They tell us stories of better days when the sun shinned brighter and they embrace us in times of sadness and despair.

My memories are also dreams in which I live from time to time, a safe place where I can fly if I like. They are a place of magic and mystery of my own creation, a planet on which I am master of my fate.

If we don’t have dreams then the memories begin to disappear, slowly as if being swallowed by some black hole of despair. It is a kind of antimatter that exists in part in all of us and the universe itself.

My memory today, this morning, was that of a year many ago when the sun had turned its head southwards again and began the annual journey into autumnal magic. The crisp and clear morning air was light and ethereal, and our pilgrimage to the changing leaves up north was underway. With a picnic packed and Jack by my side, we and two good friends would set out for the quest, talking and laughing and napping along the way. How many times had this ritual been performed I can only guess. But each time there was sadness along with the beauty that someday it would in fact only be a treasured memory of times gone by.

As I look in the mirror and ready myself for this new day do you know what I see? I see a face that while weathered by the passage of time is still a vibrant reflection of all that has gone before. What are we if not our memories; I would not wish to be anything else …