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Even the local cemetery where I often walk is resplendent with trees gone riotous with color –perhaps signaling a fête, an elaborate outdoor festival, this time celebrating death as simply one of life’s journeys.
What is it about trees that turn brilliant yellow, red or orange that never fails to take my breath away? Neighborhood streets are lined with these glorious sentinels and the hillsides are peppered with them. Even the local cemetery where I often walk is resplendent with trees gone riotous with color –perhaps signaling a fête, an elaborate outdoor festival, this time celebrating death as simply one of life’s journeys.
Not to be outdone, the vineyards seem to be vying for like splendor by replicating these luminous hues throughout vast stretches across the valley floor. Harvest complete, the vines appear to have joined in creating this profound marker in the succession of birth and demise. Winter solstice will soon tuck the earth in to rest for a season, followed by the renewal of spring.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. ~ Kahlil Gibran
My soul is deeply fed during this time of year, comforted and wooed by the recurring chapters in this affair called life –each indicative of the mystery, complexity and grandeur of the planet upon which we dwell.
Many TV’s will be tuned in tonight to National Geographic’s Great Migrations, a compelling, visual record of the rhythm of life where millions move and survive as one. Not always pretty with brutal death part of the process, it will none the less be enthralling to watch. And a reminder, perhaps, for us to emulate the focus and vigor and unity displayed among other species as they make their inevitable passage through this world, our shared home.
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