Hill Country

     The colors, the chill in the air, seasonal symbols and images, driving through the clouds (or was it fog) of the mountains, (somewhat) vigorous walks . . . October up here 'restores the soul'. 
A week is an appetizer, just enough to stimulate a strong desire for 
MORE.

    I find great   fulfillment in my profession; still, sometimes it 'makes sense' to get away, to 'recharge'. Leonardo daVinci said it well centuries ago:
   
   "Every now and then go away;
     Have a little relaxation
       for when you come back to your work
         your judgment will be surer . . .
    Go some distance away because more of the work . . . can be seen at a glance, 

   and a lack of harmony or proportion
     is more readily seen. "

October Golds

&

Reds  

Morning is Breaking   

Getting away bears looking into  . . .

       
       Satchel

"Now October Has Come Again . . ."

       "Now October has come  again which in our land is different from October in the other lands.  The  ripe, the golden month has come again . . . October is the richest of the seasons: the fields are cut, the granaries are full, the bins are loaded to the brim with fatness, and from the cider-press the rich brown oozings of the York Imperials run. . . .There is a smell of burning in small towns in the afternoon . . . The oak leaves, big and brown, are bedded deep in the yard and gutter . . . Fire drives a thorn of memory in the heart. . . . All things on earth point home in old October."
      Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River

    
               This is my favorite month.  Lots of memories, images, and hopes cluster around these 31 days.  During sweltering summers and frigid winters, I often quip that it is a good time 'to have an indoor job'.  Not so in October.  Not too hot; not too cold, the variations of temperature beckon to the outside. 

     And, the colors!!  The expanded version of Wolfe's quote extols the splendor and  variations of the hues across the land.  The sunlight is liquid gold and flame red.  There simply is an unparalleled beauty and fullness about the 'right now' of the month.
"The ripe, the golden month" the author rightly called it.  A colleague told me that the tastes are what make this a special time for him . . . the pumpkins, the apples, the spices.  All five of our senses are energized in particular ways in this glorious month.

     Yet there are also strong suggestions of the transitory nature of life wrapped into the beauty.  My dad who was born in October (22nd) and died in October (2nd) referred to the month as a  'melancholy' time.  Summer is dying and, as Wolfe noted, "over all the earth there [is] the premonitory breath of frost".  The awareness that nothing is permanent (including ourselves) brings great resistance and protests.  Can we not 'freeze frame' this beauty and hold onto it for as long as we wish ?!

     Among the strongest images that Wolfe's passage evokes is the longing for Home.  In the novel from which the quote is extracted, the young man has returned to his parents' home after the death of his father.  The cry of absence for what is gone is more than palpable.  Few words come close to capturing what is likely a universal human desire . . . home . . . real, idealized or wished for (I know, do not end a sentence with a preposition .).
Sayings and slogans about home are everywhere, some bright and cheery; others conveying a harder edge: "Home, Sweet Home"; "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home"; "I'll be Home for Christmas"; "Home on the Range"; "Home is where you hang your hat"; Robert Frost: "Home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in"; or, as  the Statler Brothers once sang about a 'successful' music star: "He never sees the lights of home, 'cause there's no home to see."

    What then is the power within this image- HOME - whether or not one has had a nurturing experience ? (And, listening to some of my clients' stories, I know that 'home' was not always a safe haven.) Among the nominees,  I would include a sense of belonging, of being connected to something  beyond just ourselves . . .  a place , a people, where and with whom we could (ideally) be ourselves and have that be accepted and acceptable.  Mary Pipher's title comes close filling the 'spot' . . . The Shelter of Each Other.

     "The ripe, the golden month" . . . one of Nature's gifts to us !
Enjoy.
     
         Satchel