beauty in the fall

Time slides away, sedation sets in, vulnerability rises. Your surrounding circumstances seem favorable enough. No complaints. many months pass and stability becomes something to depend on. Through many transitions, growth has occurred. There is excitement, and the colors of life become more diverse and more brilliant than ever. Beauty abounds.

But in an instant “the times they are a-changin’”. The places you found rest are becoming ‘not familiar’ anymore. Everything, everyone seems to be ‘not themselves’.

The world that seemed so black and white, so easy to define, becomes blurred. This community that has been nourished is beginning to fade. It is obvious that the illusion of ‘sameness’ was simply that, an illusion. Those around you are changing, wait … or is it yourself? Why is this happening? What have you done to deserve this? Panic sets in and all seems lost. You begin to lose your grip, and almost instantly (as time seems to cease to exist) you begin to fall. But now as you fall (time slows to a halt) and you drift, float, in slow motion, as your world is blurred (a result of the rocking motion) you continue down, down. And you hit. Bottom. Hope is lost?

There are seasons that we have to weather. Fall is one that is bittersweet. There is beauty, yet it is brief, causing it to be all the more enchanting. As if saying, something this beautiful could not last more than an instant. This seems to speak volumes, though. Throughout time, we are given these moments, brief they may be, but oh how profound.

It is at these moments that our eyes, our mind and our hearts are given a glimpse of something greater, some beauty that is a little further out there, just beyond our furthest reach. We try to search for these glimpses, but with no luck. They are a gift. A glimpse of things to come. A small taste of that beauty which Emerson describes as “the ultimate end”. “No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty in its largest and profoundest sense is one expression for the universe.” Forever these glimpses will stream into our hearts, and forever they will reveal a beauty beyond comprehension. And forever they will remain.

So forever in us will remain a hope. A hope for a new day.