September Leans to October

It is Monday and Fall has already arrived. I absolutely love how the air feels different. There is a palatable coziness that fills everything here on the California Coast. Though, in this land of dual seasons, the trees may not get real showy and the leaves may not fall in infinite masses,  there is still that feeling...that homey feeling ...like a calling from deep within, to begin to cuddle up with myself and take honest stock of where and who I am.

Perhaps because I am a September babe the Fall season lures me and lingers in my senses. It reminds me of starts, the first day of school, football season, holiday season...and it reminds me of endings, baseball season, the last fiery kisses of summer...

Several years ago, I traveled with my coleague, Sonia Choquette, to South Africa during our Spring. To my absolute delight I was able to experience Fall there...so I got two that year. My oh my! It felt similar but it also felt upside down. I did not know the leaves and the trees and the weather patterns like I know those that have blessed me in my life on the vital California Coast. Yet, in that freshness I tasted a new kind of Fall. It was nourishing. It was playful. It was childlike. I spent a ;lot of time outside during that trip. Though we were told it was unsafe at times, my being leaned towards the doors and windows wherever we were.

When my inner calendar starts to turn and I breathe in the first hints of Fall, I smile and begin to look with greater attention at the world around me. I search for signs and guidance and messages and callings from the animals. I look for patterns in the falling leaves. I visit the sacred spots in my memory that are wrapped in precious experiences of Fall's past. I dance with who I have become and look long at my reflection. For signs of my own leaves turning...pieces of me that have reached the end of their cycle, pieces of me that life has carved and polished and cracked, pieces of me that reflect a past no longer welcome in the present of Who I Am.

It is such a sweet time. I feel held in unseen arms. I spend hours daily watching the ever changing panorama of the sun's last rays as they celebrate the day past with a cool dip into the Pacific. I smell the flavors of the last pulsations of so much natural life. I get out the cinnamon and the nutmeg and visit the apple ranches in See Canyon just south of San Luis Obispo. I stare into the forest just outside my door and silently call to the elementals in gratitude for such a beautiful year. I invite them in. I leave the door open to feel the first cold fingers that push me under covers that have been in storage the rest of the year.

I cry more. I feel sensitive. I consciously let go and honor the year's variations. I think of the life I desire. I make mental notes of how I might change this or that. I reach for books and stock lots of ginger and peppermint tea. I smudge the house and play songs in minor keys. I stand on the porch and listen to the ocean's callings...telling me to let go. I think of relationships gone and forgotten, almost. I think of relationships to come and think of who to call to get held without expectation or confusion.

I am in love with the earth. The clearer I get, the higher my vibration rises, the more I reclaim my sight and my sensitivity to the new frequencies of nature. And in this year before the 2012 doorway, I realize that I have not experienced nature and her splendor so deeply since I was just a boy. I return to an open state and yearn for playgrounds of endless possiblity and breathtaking beauty and inspiring magnificence. It is profound, this awareness, this reclamation of the precious That I Am. I am happy and peaceful in this reflection. It is a good day to die....for I feel fully alive.

I am going for tea. While I am gone why don't you share any responses to my words that have revealed themselves...what is your experience of Fall? What is your feeling when September leans to October? I really want to know...