Tag: Seasons

Metamorphisis

It’s already September and Autumn is around the corner. Summer’s still with us, that is, astronomically speaking. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, on Tuesday, September 22nd, Fall is set to start at 8:04 pm EST. And I realize that Autumn too, will run its course faster than it should, just like the previous 3 seasons.

I’m reminded there’s a chance to keep Daylight Savings Time. I think it’s a worthwhile change; changing batteries, digital displays, analog clocks & watches as well as using the TIME button on your microwave and oven will someday be history. Hopefully. The House of Representatives have voted to keep DST as our standard time, but we still need the Senate to vote. This could be a 5-year plan they’re working on. Our circadian rhythm may have to wait a bit longer.

For some of us, summer’s end is yet another blessing in disguise. Change is the one constant in life. Everything changes from one thing to another. Fall has its own personality.

For me, I look forward to the changes familiar to me, the kind that act like cues, even switches to turn on–or off–elements from my own history, my own state-of-mind. Melancholy rises as these switches of cooler weather, shorter days, falling leaves and other changes have a way of rolling my dysthymia up & down.

Ironically, and perhaps with a hint of contradiction and disconnect, a handful of these cues happen to also reduce the rise of my own melancholy. In other words, there are good days and bad days, and the mutual nature of moods and perceptions carry both a salve and an irritant. Anyone of our 4 seasons does that to me, and likely to others as well.

Light and Duplicity

A common refrain I hear that builds as the days get shorter is the disdain of less daylight. It sours the mood among many of us. On the other hand, the duplicity, or double dealing of, light has its own protagonists. Yes, there are some days that feel more melancholic than others, and its been argued that the deficit of sunlight can be partly responsible for feeling down and out.

Indeed, Seasonal Affective Disorder [SAD] is a real ailment. In fact, psychologists have recommended the use of a therapy lamp to help those with SAD. They work and it genuinely helps my dysthymia. My northernlighttechnologies floor lamp is outstanding. As the days get shorter, this lamp really helps attenuate my depression. It is purpose built and I use it before I turn in for the night. It also makes a good reading light. I recommend you find out as much as you can about light therapy.

Still, a few of us don’t mind the reduction of sunlight. We rediscover sensibilities that come and go once a new season takes hold. The light still exists, but the time of day can contradict expectations. The sun sets earlier, and so evenings start sooner.

As the light dissolves into colors, I find myself downshifting from life’s stresses to simpler, more grounded modes of living. The cooling air beckons me to the tennis court, home & garden projects, more time outside etc. Fall is my favorite season.

I allow myself to feel gratitude. I recall situations and events that brought a smile, a good feeling to that conflicted “inner me” that no one really sees. Am I living in the past? There may be some validity to that notion, however it’s the remembrance of those feelings from each situation that jettisons the discomfort at the edges.
Now, when you make the effort to help/support/comfort someone you care about, then you realize all the work you did to help was well worth the time and effort. Can you do the same for yourself? It takes time and a focused amount of effort.

Changing seasons and the shifting of light are palpable conditions. The ebb and flow of our seasons are with us. They’re all invaluable to us, and each season houses a sentiment that can remind us of our gravitas.

Bare Trees

The changing seasons has a way of rebooting my perspectives on life’s moving parts. It’s also an opportunity for me to find, even create, connections that could lead me to alternate choices about work and family, problems and challenges, as well as my own professional and personal goals. The fall suggests possibilities with a palette of colors where each one suggests a sentiment to whatever I’m feeling or thinking. More often than not, I make one, perhaps 2 attachments of color to an idea, an attitude, or even a condition that’s been entrenched in a mood of some sort which I cannot correlate or let go of.
However, when the maples, birch, oaks and other trees reveal their once covered limbs, I see a “wireframe” ready for a season of open air, of white space and a period of quiet and rest. Once again, it’s a reboot of sorts given the visual clues of autumn.

From a distance these bare trees take on an innocuous albeit familiar appearance. You realize that these wireframes silhouetted against a grey forest floor or an overcast sky has the potential to stimulate your way of visualizing beyond the obvious and the rote. Late fall and bare trees are midwives to modified or new byways to thinking and feeling.

Such possibilities make bare trees special. True, this past autumn the colors were fantastic, vibrant, even spectacular, more so than years past as far as I can tell. That festival of color has its own cathartic energy. Compared to just a few weeks ago, these now dormant, quiet trees are a type of dopamine, a suitable follow-on for my busy “monkey-mind.” There’s a levity and sense of calm with bare trees that’s akin to starting anew and refreshed.
The trees are steadfast and immobile and yet there’s a fluid-like form that draws your attention. And because you can see between the branches, openings of various shapes and dimensions become apparent. That white space becomes a cocoon for imagination and emotion, of things improbable that feel possible if only in theoretical form. What can you jettison from your mind into those spaces now in front of you? There are things each of us can let go of.

Many of the trees are straight up and down although the oaks and maples have a grace manifested by the sweeping reach of higher branches. The silhouette of these branches appear as arms with a soft curve, its ends like fingers gently reaching for the sky.

Late fall and bare trees are markers of change. In its most obvious forms, it means shorter days, cooler temperatures, fantastic light and shadow and a time change. The latter is likely the least wanted change this time of year. And yet the markers also remind us that still more change is to come. Some welcome winter [like me] and others can’t wait for spring.
In a personal way bare trees are anthropomorphic. They go through cycles of change just as we do with our life stages. And as in life, some of the bare trees will remain so in the months ahead. Just as some of us will, our own thoughts and feelings leaving our physical selves.
Bare trees can mirror our own life qualities season to season. Or maybe it’s the other way around; after all, trees have long existed before we arrived.