“Despite a sunny forecast, we were rained out at 3 pm. I’m rarely happy for an early day. It feels so good to work outdoors this time of year, and the last vestiges of brilliant color are a balm, & a portent, of winter. The closer I can be to the ground, brushing up against plants, clipping down the dying stalks, and digging, in a yet unfrozen earth ... these are borrowed moments, stolen from an oncoming, inevitable season of snow. It all makes sense, as much as anything can make sense, in the biological world. We must rest, and sleep, falling into our roots, to dream our way back to the living. I don’t resent it, but I feel the sadness of it, and understanding sadness as I do, I want to pamper what’s left, as it sinks into slumber. Perhaps consciousness is over-rated. What we do while unconscious, is the way of what breathes, or slithers, or flies across the failing sky. It’s the part we can’t control, but must trust, to be our portal back home. Our roots remain full, and intact, and ready, as the world darkens, and plummets. I do believe this. As the spitting rain begins to come down, we laugh, and take stock of what extra clothing we may, or may not have, in our vehicles. Taking lunch under the protection of a Volvo tailgate, we ponder our options. There is so much yet to do. Gardens join us in the ritual, as we put them to bed, with one eye towards spring. We revel in the familiar movements, of cutting back, and transplanting in the cool comfort of autumn’s unpredictable temperatures. No longer beaten by heat, or dryness, palettes open, and a new landscape begins, as the current one dies. We finally we give in, submitting to our cold toes, and our lack of preparation. But ultimately there is no reason to suffer. I share a drink from my cooler, with my friend, and our regrouping of jobs intended for today, to next week, is no impediment. It will all get done in good time. There will always be too much to do, always. Driving out, on a newly graded driveway, as the rain pounds harder, I think back on how much we’ve accomplished, in one season. The grass we thought would never spout, has finally taken root in full, edges cut, shrubs relocated, areas of abundance reined in, to maximize their aesthetic impact. The rolling weeks of summer that stretched out in endless profusion have only been a blip. Now, we face the quietude, and subtlety and the recession. It feels like closure, a closure that ensures a better opening, on the other side of death. On the roads I follow home, I can hardly stop looking at everything I pass. The hydrangeas that have stood the test of time, still producing outrageous performances, against barns, or trailers, or places they were thrown in the ground, willy nilly, decades ago. I want to say: “I see you” but ... they don’t really care. Ditto, the goats I pass, loitering in a soggy farmyard, or prodigious acres of cattle. whose eye I catch, as I love them, though they will never know me. Ditto, the fox, darting in front of my 4 wheeler, as I head to a compost pile. The catbirds, the ravens, the wooly bear caterpillars, enduring our rakes and disturbances. I can’t not mention the worms, so controversial now, as the latest fad of invasive species sweeps through the gardening community. No matter, not in my mind. I take it all in stride, and don’t assume to be the lord of their manor. Butting heads with other species in their own ascendency or decline, is all in a day’s work. The beauty of it all, creates a most profound silence, and continues to astound. I reflect on my shoddy attempts to reach enlightenment, without them. That was never to be. It was always meant for me to clamber into the trenches, with the lowest of the low. To be an observer, of what the earth is doing, as it makes its response to higher powers. From this, we can learn, or begin to assimilate our own existence. For why we are here, is as yet to be determined. To create, to destroy, to make amends, or to correct. It’s all a daily practice, of getting up, and showing up, and being real until there’s nothing left to prove.”
