Quotes from the Classics: October
Ohio is an autumn postcard, a veritable cliché of colored leaves, pumpkin patches, and cinnamon donuts with warm apple cider. There is a chill in the air that makes a hoodie extra special, whether it be worn on a hayride, through a corn maze, or shielding against intermittent snow flurries, depending on the year. Welcome, October!
Ohio is an autumn postcard, a veritable cliché of colored leaves, pumpkin patches, and cinnamon donuts with warm apple cider. There is a chill in the air that makes a hoodie extra special, whether it be worn on a hayride, through a corn maze, or shielding against intermittent snow flurries, depending on the year. Welcome, October!
If you tune in right now, the Earth is unearthing herself. The cooling air has less moisture, less vapor, and fewer clouds, the sun casting its final few warm rays from a seat of brilliant blue. Animals scurry about in pursuit of basic food and shelter, the essential becoming apparent. The leaves remove their cloaks of green and the trees now don their favorite colors. There is enough light, seeming to shine on rather than through things, to reveal all as it is for just a moment before everything pares back to pure essence. The veil is thin, as those now honoring ancestors and remembering they are part of a story much larger than themselves, would share. Everything is honest. Everything is gorgeous. And there is perspective to be had.
Fall trees by Pixabay
Who are we? Who are we really? What is true? So true that it puts what is not in relief? And what is not ours, not us? Sense yourself and hold on devotedly, cut what’s misaligned, and let it fall away in the cool autumn breeze. I believe the season will support it. Now is the time to see we are not our flaws or our failures or the 1,001 iterations of fear we harbor (the psychologically systemic kind, not the running from lions kind). Rather, we are the beautiful humans having them, able to move toward the Light because of them, ever becoming more of who we are meant to be. And isn’t that really the goal? We are colors of Love, the hurts healed by our brilliance, the pain soothed by our beauty, the world painted with more peace. The trees have already revealed their favorite colors? What’s yours?
Check out these quotes from the classics that speak to all things October. Enjoy!
“Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.”
“It’s the first day of autumn! A time of hot chocolatey mornings, and toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves!”
“The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past; there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!”
“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise... Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth seeking the successive autumns.”
“Only lovers
see the fall
a signal end to endings
a gruffish gesture alerting
those who will not be alarmed
that we begin to stop
in order to begin
again.”
“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October”
“I just want to live in a world of mountains, coffee, campfires, cabins and golden trees, and run around with a camera and notebook, learning the inner workings go everything real.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
P.S. Alright, I just really dig Victoria Erickson and her absolutely beautiful writing. Can we say modern classic?
Quotes from the Classics: September
When my oldest baby was an actual baby - no more than 2 or 3 years old - we began a tradition of watching September sunrises. This didn’t happen as it would in the movies. It was not the result of arduous pre-planning or creative brainstorming. It spawned from pure chaos, like the best ideas often are.
When my oldest baby was an actual baby - no more than 2 or 3 years old - we began a tradition of watching September sunrises. This didn’t happen as it would in the movies. It was not the result of arduous pre-planning or creative brainstorming. It spawned from pure chaos, like the best ideas often do.
From the outset, my lovely daughter and I failed to see eye to eye on one important concept. I was madly in Love with sleeping (still am) and she was tolerant, at best (still is). To her, sleep was a necessary part of the human experience, sure, but certainly not something one would purposely go out of their way to do. Sleep was something that just kind of fell upon you when you weren’t paying attention, and in particularly interesting situations, something to be fought against at every turn lest you be caught unawares, fall victim, and MISS something. And when you’re 2 or 3, everything is an interesting situation.
My sweet child decided the best way to retain all the things she’d learned during the day would be to do a systematic review at bedtime…out loud…for hours. If she wasn’t otherwise fighting nap time, she believed dozing for 5 minutes in the car was perfectly sufficient. If she woke up in the morning, going back to sleep wasn’t an option, at least for a few hours. I spent years a haggard shell of a woman and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was often angry with her. Every once in a while, though, a particularly brilliant mom moment helped me to redeem myself.
Sunrise and tall grass by Rose Erkul
I had such a moment one ridiculously early morning when I woke to find big, blinking, brown eyes staring at me. After having sung songs, rubbed and soothed, brewed tea, coaxed and cajoled, all to no avail, I packed my little one up, drove to the lake, and watched wonder fill her face as color and light filled the clear September sky. Our tradition had begun.
Since then, the places have changed, and we’ve even added another member to our little crew, but the tradition remains, the September sun rising so late in the morning as to not thwart the sleep my eldest does get these days. Our latest location is at the top of a very high hill that requires us to trek across a field and up 116 steps. When we first found it, my youngest (who Loves to sleep, thank heaven) was about the same age as her sister. Each year about halfway across the field, she would inevitably yell, “Mommy, I can’t make it.” I’d have to pick her up and race across dewy grass and up a concrete corridor to the beat the sun! We always made it, though my chest felt like it was going to cave in each time. I watched a new little face fill with the same amazement my oldest and I had come to know, and the three of us would face the coming of a new day together.
Recently my littlest has managed to make the journey without help, and there is a pang of sadness. I know they’re growing up and I will have to let them go, as the trees let their leaves go each Fall. I also know nothing real is ever really gone. I know that while seasons change and years pass, relationships woven with September sunrises and lots of Love, will remain.
Check out these quotes that capture the specialness of September:
“All the months are crude experiments, out of which the perfect September is made.”
“Happily we bask in this warm September sun, which illuminates all creatures…”
“Comfort me with apples. ”
“I’ll tell you how the Sun rose -
A Ribbon at a time -
The Steeples swam in Amethyst -
The news, like Squirrels, ran - ”
“There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!”
“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. ”
“The first breath of autumn was in the air, a prodigal feeling, a feeling of wanting, taking, and keeping before it is too late.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen
Quotes from the Classics: August
Hello, August! Mid-to-late summer has a distinctly different feel than the first half of the season. As with everything, I’m finding I have to pay close attention to get in on the magic. On the surface, things are moving. Gardens are full and neighbors are frantically exchanging zucchinis and tomatoes from plants they’ve nurtured, plants that have now gone bonkers as a result. The bounty of fresh food, perfumed with summer’s carefree essence, initiates front porch conversations and handwritten thank you cards. Joy and exuberance emanate like the sparks of nearby bonfires glittering in the open night.
Hello, August! Mid-to-late summer has a distinctly different feel than the first half of the season. As with everything, I’m finding I have to pay close attention to get in on the magic. On the surface, things are moving. Gardens are full and neighbors are frantically exchanging zucchinis and tomatoes from plants they’ve nurtured, plants that have now gone bonkers as a result. The bounty of fresh food, perfumed with summer’s carefree essence, initiates front porch conversations and handwritten thank you cards. Joy and exuberance emanate like the sparks of nearby bonfires glittering in the open night.
And yet, there is something grounding in the energy too. The squirrels that spent much of their days chasing each other from branch to branch and up and down tree trunks, may feel the cooler night air or notice a leaf or two a little yellower than the rest toward the bottom of a favorite tree. They are gathering with a bit more intention now. There are mature plants with wide open faces basking in summer sun and also going to seed, appreciation for food and also commitment to storing it, gratitude for crystal blue skies and for the hoodies that keep us warm on cool nights.
Sunflower by Domenico Gentile
There are a million reflections of existence that have manifested themselves in the last months, and there are a million more displays of Life’s ever-and-always-becoming. This strange and beautiful August alchemy that blends and mixes rapture and responsibility, also produces something altogether new. It exists at the fringes of my awareness, probably overlooked, if not for writing this post, and yet as familiar as breath. And it is this: I am the one to prepare, to build, to move, to bring to fruition my part of a wondrous unfolding. I am the one to create my life. And if not me, then who?
I am part of this beautiful rhythm and so I carry forward a heart full of warm summer blessings, grateful for growth. I hold close what matters most to me, grounding deeper roots of understanding. I adopt the same spirit of determination and commitment I feel pervading this season and draw it within to strengthen and sustain me. And I open myself to a willingness to let all else fall away in the coming season, ever devoted to the summer that will come again as sure as the sun will rise in the East.
Tall grass and sunshine by Niklas Hamann
Check out these beautiful quotes from the classics that point to the essence of August. Enjoy!
“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.”
“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
“If we had never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man or woman grown, sat down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem to us a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds, above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind would be filled with its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that such things could be mere matter and no more. Like a dream of some spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit to be touched lest it should fall to pieces, too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away.”
“The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ”
“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
Love in all things,
April Eileen