Nature’s transition

It’s that time of year again, when nature slowly retreats, and plants die back and settle in for the winter. It’s a time of letting go and taking stock, a time for grateful remembrance of nature’s bounty and looking ahead to renewal that is promised in the seeds produced and scattered by the birds and the wind.

Nature does not go quietly in my neck of the woods. The riotous colors of the maple and other trees and the waving seedheads of the grasses provide a gorgeous show. Fall in New England is always worth the wait and always worth celebrating.

In my photography I try to capture both the letting go and the defiant display. I find that there is a certain melancholy in realizing that the winter months of cold and darkness are soon upon us, as I see the natural world in retreat, but there is also a wide-spread celebration of this colorful season, which returns year after year. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year.

It’s no accident that the penitential season of Advent occurs in the fall and that Christmas is celebrated at the time of year when the sunlight begins to increase in time and strength each day, as the world slowly begins to warm and waken. The dying to self that leads to resurrection is on display in the world in front of us everywhere we look. Is it any surprise that this cycle occurs in us as well?

“Glory be to God for dappled things…” (G.M. Hopkins)