Every year, our autumn is accompanied by bills. The car insurance, service, and tax all come together, some meek indulgences of summer still need to be paid for… etc.
Keats’ ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ comes with a dearth too.
But, as the church bell tolls eleven, and the autumn sun is unseasonably warm, sitting in the garden in a suburb town of Leicester, we are thankful.
Autumn. “We don’t have much, but what we do have is good”, Frank Short. “Count your blessings” Hilda Short.
Two things my grandparents said often that have stuck with me from my formative years. Are they a tad naive? Do they come from a position of relative privilege? …but I still hold them as essentially well- meaning and genuinely lovingly humble.
Is it worth reminiscing and looking at autumns passed… ?
Maybe.
Listening to Steve Chapman’s intriguing ‘ridiculous {TED} talk about a pointless project’ recently,
I’m reminded the idea that perhaps “We are essentially all hairless apes standing on a ball of rock in the infinite emptiness of space, orbiting a billionyear-old everexpanding nuclear explosion that will one day consume everything we know as real. Seeking meaning in a universe that is utterly disinterested in our quest to make sense of this mysterious thing that we call life”
But that’s what I love. The glimmers of meaning everywhere. Meaningless meaning that we construct stories from.
Not the chaos of noise from our digital meta-worlds, but the scintillations, the glimmers from the everyday, the life in our breath.
Awake.
As Antony De Mello suggested, to “understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. …tragically, [many] never get to see {notice} that ‘all is well”.
I remember reading that our perception of time can speed up when life becomes routine and repetitive, and slow down when you encounter novel or stimulating experiences. As Ezra Bayda said, “What happens when we slow down and pay attention? Everything! Innumerable delights are right at hand.”
Doesn’t help pay the bills, but helps to ground you in the now.
Here’s Audrey from our garden.
Here’s Lincoln Cathedral.
And here’s the dog, wanting to play.
