A Pensive Day

It's most definitely shifting to autumn these days. More grey days, some rain, the slow turning of the leaves from green to yellow, orange, red, the desire to make soup light candles. All day today I've wanted to go out somewhere amidst the deciduous trees, breathe in their smells of decay and seasonal passing and to listen to the quiet. The quiet is one of my favourite parts of autumn. Not like the more crisp silence of winter but more of a muffled, cozy quiet as the earth prepares for slumber. It's a quieting time, a time to turn inside and start the home fires burning just a bit. 

For me, it's also a pondering time. I'm in one of my pensive moods today where I think about life, time, experiences. My spirit feels closer to the surface today, a warm, full energy in my chest that sits with me as I go about my activities: quilting pieces of my past together, talking to a good, old friend, writing. It's a time for self to come inside also. The exuberance of summer has passed, save for a few more rare days here and there. It's not yet winter when so much of our time is spent inside. But we're in the middle, and that's when my soul is most evoked. That's when my soul feels so connected to this earth and the seasonal shifts and even to me and the shifts in my life. 


Ten years ago, I was going into my last year of college after working out in Idaho with the Forest Service. The twenties are a time of idealism, adventure, hope, desire. Some people carry those further in life than others. Life can have a tendency to suck those feelings out of a person: work, responsibility, bills. Where is the balance? Yes, we need some money to get by in life, we need food, water, shelter. But do we not also need love, passion, happiness, joy, growth, fulfillment? Do most people find those things in their jobs, in their daily lives? I am so fortunate to have so much of that as an at home mom, but does my partner? The responsibility burden then falls on him. In my life and in our lives, I want balance. I don't want to lose my passions, my hope in return for... what? 

I still believe that balance is possible, that we don't have to sacrifice our dreams for the grind of daily life. In today's world it takes work to find it, but I do believe it's there if we trust in our hearts and our guts and search it out. 

" If you built castles in the sky ; your work need not be lost ; that is where they should be. Now, put the foundations under them. " - Henry David Thoreau