Autumn Colors: A Time to Remenisce & Recommit

Fall is my favorite season. The weather cools. The aspen leaves are reddening in the mountains. Farmers are harvesting their crops. Hunters are scoping out the deer for the hunt.

There’s a general buzz of excitement about the air that I can’t quite explain. But I love it.

Last weekend, I picked and canned my tomatoes. Over the summer, I had spent a lot of work watering, weeding, and caring for those plants, so it was rewarding to finally see it pay off.

Less visible than tomatoes, there’s a harvest that also takes place in one’s self. For example, a person can “harvest” things like integrity, patience, and love through hard work and community. For teens at Turn-About Ranch, their hard work transforms them into new beings—they harvest the rewards of dedication, meditativeness, and they learn strength of character.

That buzz of new life seems to fill Escalante this month – the Escalante Canyons Art Festival being a last sort of hurrah! before the frost.

All the Things You Should Have Done

While Autumn enlivens me, I think it is also a time to ask the hard questions. It’s a time for me to reflect and look back at my Summer. Did I live it well?

In the Fall, you realize what you should have done with your Summer.

You realize you should have spent less time on the TV and more time breathing fresh air.

You realize you should have gone to the gym more often.

You realize you should have tossed out the donuts and eaten more carrots.

Having forgotten to make space for a vacation or overspending on a toy you didn’t need, Fall can be a time of disappointment and regret. How many times have you heard the phrase, “Summer went by too fast!”

But that’s what I love most about it. Fall is the time where you can recommit yourself. Fall makes you realize the value of the other seasons. You can recommit to a successful winter, spring, and summer. Then, you experience yet another transformation the next Autumn.

Each Leaf A Chance to Recommit

Author & Journalist Jim Bishop

American Journalist and Author Jim Bishop once said:

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”

For every leaf that falls, it can be easy to despair over what you did or did not do. But I like to see each leaf as a piece of gold, a transaction between you and nature, where each leaf is a reminder to live life more fully.