The Season of Surrender
Be not deceived my friend, as you watch trembling fragile leaves of every hue refusing to relinquish and let go of their ecstatic, comfortable hold on life and all that has been: gradually and finally succumbing to the unrelenting dictates of gravity and the teasing gentle inroads of wind and rain.
How hard to say farewell to the seemingly eternal warmth and beauty of summer! How heart-breaking to disconnect from those strong structures of trunk and branches — which remain upright, invincible, intoxicatingly triumphant over the elements of cold, frost, wind, rain and storm. They reign serene, unflinching amid surrounding ongoing frailty and degeneration.
Only bare hedgerows, fruitless trees and flowerless gardens
speak the silent message that death has prevailed and beauty fled.
Bleak, heavy cloud-filled skies, blinding fog-clogged mornings, raw blisteringly cold air, do their best to encourage the belief that the evidence of the human eye is paramount and completely trustworthy.
The show is over!
But behold! – on the saturated, windswept earth below, glorious shades of leafy carpets cling to the feet and allow themselves to be trodden deep into the soil. New life is already being conceived: all unseen and hidden from sight. Even the sombre naked trees hide a long kept secret! Dying and death always precede an unfailing annual awesome and truly glorious resurrection!Be not deceived by images of decay and barrenness.
All is well with Mother Nature.
Spring is in the making, and we have everything to look forward to!
So Rejoice and be glad!
Mary Frances Collett, RNDM