a prophetic voice-

Windows open wide...a grand and glorious gift. The air blowing through the house, sweeping in its path all that is stale and dull and hidden...bringing with it a sense of energy, of newness, which has felt dormant during the long, closed-in days of this summer's heat. And filled with that energy today,I changed my bed linens, did laundry, cooked homemade applesauce, all the while rejoicing in the lovely, cool temperatures with which the day gifted me, gifted us all in this part of Carolina. And now, tonight, I will crawl between fresh, clean sheets- one of my favorite sensations, a sense memory which harkens back to  childhood evenings after Mother had changed the sheets- which in her house happened every week but in mine happens only about every month. For me, there is something so comforting, so nurturing, about crawling into bed to the welcome of cool, clean sheets, which- in those days- smelled of the outdoors and carried the awareness of my mother's loving...

M y house smells like Autumn...windows open to let in the many earthy smells of the trees, new mown grass, and freshly spread mulch on the neighbor's garden...all of this accompanied by the nurturing, nourishing, delectable odor of apples cooking on the stove for homemade applesauce. The birds seem overjoyed, too, their songs punctuating the people-sounds in the neighborhood with melodic delight, a reminder to me that all-too-soon some of them will be leaving my yard for warmer climes, leaving the bird feeders to the cardinals, blue jays, titmice, and woodpeckers. I love this time of year, with its cooler nights and its daily juxtaposition of rainy days following closely on the heels of brilliantly blue ones...with its call to dig out the long sleeves and sweaters, to put away the pastels of spring and summer in favor of the oranges and reds and deeper greens and browns which seem emblematic of the season. Of course, Autumn is also a seas...

I love autumn, with its sparkling colors and colder weather...as the world gives one last incredible hurrah of brilliance prior to settling into the stark, hibernating bareness of winter. For me, it is also a time of reflection...a season when I think deeply about life and living, about making the daily journey. And so today, on this fourteenth day of October, I am sharing with you some of my autumnal poetry...reflections which have emerged from the deep inner places where my hope resides. My wish is that some of my words may speak to you, heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind, person-to-person. autumn In the autumn, life readies itself to sleep, to rest and re-form, to lie in fallow peace for a few short months until spring again calls out in gleeful abandon and life unburies itself.   Autumn is floating leaves, full of color, creating noisy confetti underfoot...crisp, clean air punctuated by the chattering of busy squirrels, by the songs of birds seeking seeds...

Yesterday at 4:44p.m. EDT, the fall equinox heralded the official arrival of autumn. I'm not at all sure of how this precise time was determined; I only know that here in my part of Carolina, it was a marvelous, glorious, beautiful day...Carolina-blue skies, bright sunshine, and clear, cool air. It could not have been more perfect, except... Yesterday was the funeral of a former parishioner and long-time friend of mine. Her untimely death on Wednesday came as the result of a traffic accident, caused by a man- under the influence of prescription drugs and driving without a license- running a stop sign and plowing into her minivan. Both Teresa and her little dog were killed; the man was not- and though he has been charged with three or four felonies, that is small comfort to the family and friends of this life-filled, vibrant woman. When will we ever learn, I wonder, that an automobile is a lethal weapon in the wrong hands? That drugs, including those both legal and...

Today's weather here in my part of Carolina can be described in one word: GLORIOUS. Temperature presently 66 degrees, bright sunshine, Carolina-blue skies with a dusting of fluffy white, cotton-candy clouds, and a slight breeze tickling the leaves in the trees outside my window. Our first taste of autumn- and this thrive-in-cool-weather person loves it. We've had a very wet summer here, with an overabundance of gray days, something unusual for us, and I heard lots of griping from folks on those days, as they expressed the wish that the wet weather would end. And so it has, as we've moved into a dry cycle which has some of those same folks complaining about the need to water their flowers or lawns. Kind of a metaphor for life, it seems to me, this love-hate relationship with the weather- OVER WHICH WE HAVE NO CONTROL. And perhaps that is part of the reason for the griping and complaining. It just happens to us- and we are left con templating what has occurr...

How beautiful Carolina is in the autumn. Everywhere you look, color fills the landscape, all the more precious because it is so fleeting. And now, with the recent rains and high winds, my lawn is littered with the leaves which so recently graced the limbs of the trees in the yard, many of which are now standing nearly bare in preparation for the coming of winter. In the brief week since these pictures were taken around my house, much of this color is gone, as the winds which cleared the clouds and gave us the incandescent Carolina-blue skies stripped these lovely ladies of their colorful garb, their bare bones now showing clearly and starkly. What an autumn it has been, though. In spite of a paucity of rainfall through so much of the summer, Nature put on her annual show. Oh, there were fewer reds and oranges, though a maple tree at the end of my block put on a truly remarkable show, going from orange to red to glowing gold over a matter of weeks. Glorious, simply glorious...

Somehow, a sometimes-sultry September has slithered out the door and October has slipped in, bringing delightfully cooler temperatures, blue skies, chill breezes, and the tinge of color on the tips of trees, putting me in the mood for the tasks of making soup and applesauce and, perhaps, baking an apple pie. Isn't it strange how certain foods seem to go with certain seasons? How the palate just seems to yearn for a specific taste when the air cools and the nights lengthen? My heart leans toward "comfort foods" at this time of year...foods like baked or mashed white potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, meatloaf, liver with onions, oven-roasted veggies, and chili, leaving behind the lighter fare of summer, as "real" tomatoes and peaches disappear from the farmers' market, to be replaced by root vegetables and loads of apples. In many ways, Autumn is my favorite season, though it brings with it a certain melancholy, the fragrant, flagrant beauty of summer being gr...