The Seasons Tell a Story

According to Science, fall begins in the Northern Hemisphere on September 22, at 10:49 A.M. EDT. 

Seriously.  Not at 11:00 o'clock or even 10:50, but at 10:49 precisely.   

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, of course—even Science. But I think that autumn is a state of mind. It begins when I get the urge to whip up a pot of chili. Or to sip a mug of apple cider. Or maybe it starts the first morning I see Orion, or when the first clump of yellow leaves appears on the old maple tree. 

Fall has a kind of wistfulness that suddenly overtakes me, and I feel like writing a poem or going for a drive with no destination in mind. The beginning of fall, for me, is impossible to predict. It just happens.

I have a friend who says that fall begins the first day you hear an airplane fly overhead and suddenly realize that the sound is no longer muffled by humidity in the air. I love that bit of folk weather-lore, although I’m pretty sure Science would tap its foot and scowl.

Science does that sometimes. For Science has its seasons, and the heart has its own.

The changing seasons are endlessly fascinating to me—partly because they tell a story. In fact, they tell the story at the heart of all myth, the story of the hero’s journey.

Every hero must set out on a journey (symbolically in spring) and face dangers/perils (summer). And finally he must confront the ultimate test. He must face death (winter). And in some sense, he must die, but then go through a resurrection into a new life.

Sometimes the hero faces his worst fear and, against all odds, emerges victorious. (Yay!) Sometimes he dies to his old self or mindset, but emerges with a changed heart. (Hmmmm.) Sometimes he actually dies (Boo!), but he lives on in his work/dream/beloved. (Ahhhhh.) But at its core, the mythic journey is about facing death.

In the seasons we have the seeming death of nature, as autumn leaves fall and many animals migrate or hibernate and the earth is buried beneath a silent shroud of snow. I can’t help but feel a sense of dread as winter approaches, even though I know the story well, and I know that spring will come again.

According to Science, the seasons are a random byproduct of the earth getting knocked a little crooked—so that the axis of rotation isn’t perpendicular to the plane of revolution around the sun. Yeah, whatever.

But I think the seasons are a message to the people of this planet. “Hang in there. No matter how dark or cold or gray your world may become, there will always be a spring. Never be afraid to hope. Never give up.”

We are the travelers on this journey, heroes in the making, facing our fears--not always by choice. And on this journey, we have only our friends, our faith, and messages of hope. Some of these messages were written on clay tablets by the ancients, some by a blogger in Indiana only yesterday. Some were written as fiction, some as poems. And some were written into the fabric of the universe.

I love Science. Our friendship goes back to my childhood. But sometimes Science and I just have to give each other some space. 

So Science can hang around the lab and wait for autumn, while I go on a hayride or start shopping for the perfect pumpkin. Because I know fall is already here.

Ban the Butterflies!

We don’t need any more children’s books about seasons changing or caterpillars turning into butterflies.

That was the gist of a blog post I read recently. And I think I get what this guy is saying—that children’s writers could try looking around for some new material. And I agree.

Sort of.

But I can’t help thinking that if you get jaded to the miracle of changing seasons or of earthbound worms sprouting wings, maybe you shouldn’t write for children. Maybe you shouldn’t write for anybody. 

The cycle of the seasons and the metamorphosis of caterpillars both echo the theme of death and resurrection at the heart of the Master Story, the story at the root of all stories. Death and Resurrection are the climax of the mythic hero’s journey, as described by Christopher Vogler in The Writer’s Journey. Over and over we die to an old way of life--or an old way of thinking--and we are reborn into a new awareness, a new understanding.

May I never cease to be amazed by simple things. Like soap bubbles. Or dandelion fluff. Or spider webs. Or snow. May I never stop seeing the numinous in the ordinary. May I never forget that all beans are magic beans. Or in the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God.”

So maybe we don’t need more original subject matter--just new ways of telling the “old, old story.” We need a fresh voice, a fresh slant, a fresh pair of eyes.

And now that I think about it, we need more books about seasons and butterflies. Lots more.

EPILOGUE: a question for my readers--both of you.

What simple, everyday things fill you with wonder and awe?