Equinox

In the late summer mornings, the steam rises from the pool and catches in the angled rays of sunlight peeking through the honeysuckle hedge. The hydrangeas’ blooms have faded from lavender back to green again, and are now starting to brown at the edges of the ruffled petals.

There is a stillness to the air, a quiet which was not there in the heat of the summer, when I would wake to the buzz and hum of an inner energy in the yard. Now, it is as if the pines are nodding to one another, and saying it is time to rest a little.

I can feel a deeper hum resonating through the earth, the plants, the birds, and me this time of year — a hum which connects us to something ancient, like the rivers of sap coursing through the veins of a tree connect to the spider webs of bacteria and fungi beneath its roots, the network through which trees communicate. The trees’ language is slower than ours, and yet rhythmic, its pattern echoing through the eons.

All of nature hears that resonance, that call. It is not only the hydrangeas which don a different dress this time of year. The Liquid Amber trees know too that it is time for a change of attire. The green of the chlorophyll recedes back into their hearts, leaving behind the fiery dance of burnt orange and desirous red to flutter in the fall breeze.

And the milkweed has begun to puff — its yellow flowers shape-shifting into clouds of seed, sailing on the wind to lay down roots for next spring. A few monarchs still dip and dance just overhead, beyond the reach of the cats, but most, like the orioles who visit each summer, have begun the trek back to their forest home in the hills of Mexico.

The succulent blooms, which began the march up their stalks in midsummer, have faded at the base, but now explode in coral-pink flutes at the arch of their tips. The loamy earth retains a springiness that was not there in summer’s baking heat. And new growth creeps through the soil, awaiting next spring’s touch.

It is this time of year that beckons the most to the muse living inside of me. It is when the deep ties to nature that tug at my soul pull me back in a little tighter, to a place where I can hear her voice whispering in my ear a little more clearly.

When I was young, I was a word-crafter, but I knew it wasn’t quite time yet to heed the call. I knew I needed the experiences of summer, the layers of time, to have the depth of fall, the tapestry of lessons learned and tears spilt, and heart-exploding joys, and the anguish of loss from which to speak.

My face, like the skin of the trees, is not as smooth as it once was. And, like the giant Bird of Paradise arching overhead through the shadows to reach into the sunlight, my body has adapted to a hip that doesn’t quite do what it used to. But yet, contentment courses through me. I am settling in for the season, pen in hand, camera at the ready, to heed the muse’s whispered words.

I drift again through those fingers of fog which rise off of the water to hang, suspended in the early morning chill. Mr. Squirrel, who inhabits the treetops overhead, barks at me, as if to say, “finally, we have our yard back — all of those summer visitors are gone.” The scent of wet pine needles, starting to decay back into the earth, and of mosses thirstily drinking in the nectar of the season as they begin to fluoresce with a green I haven’t seen all summer, envelops me.

The light dances through the treetops, flickering over the stone steps which meander up the hill, to where there is a little patch of puddled brightness up top. And, I feel my feet guided towards that path, climbing through memories and dreams towards a new tapestry of words, heeding the voice of the fall.

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