AN OCTOBER WALK IN THE MOUNTAINS

I spent yesterday 
walking various trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 
which are always resplendent in the colors of late October.
This image is of a colorful cove of Lake Sequoyah, near Highlands, North Carolina

When walking through the woods, 

we usually look straight ahead or to the sides.  

Over the years, however, I've discovered that some 

of them most wonderful sights can only be seen by looking up.

I love the abstract patterns created by tree limbs from this angle.

There are many large lakes in the Blue Ridge Mountains,

but one also stumbles upon tranquil small ponds like this one off the beaten path.

I'm especially attracted to the beautiful abstract designs found

 in nature.  This image is a reflection of some of the autumn foliage in a slow- 

moving section of the Chattooga River, just to the west of Highlands, North Carolina.

This is a stretch of the North Fork of the Chattooga River.

As I walked along a trail

that followed the Chattooga River, 

I came upon a man and his two sons out for a day of fishing.

This was one of the trails I walked yesterday, 

a four-mile loop around Lake Fairfield, near Sapphire, North Carolina.

Looking across Lake Fairfield, I could see 

the sheer rock face of Old Bald Mountain, wrapped in the warm colors of autumn. 

On one of the high look-out points between Highland and Cashiers

North Carolina, I had a great view of the lush foliage that saturated the valley below.

Just outside the town of Highlands, my eyes fell upon 

this little section of woods, which reminded me of an impressionist painting.

A section of woods between Highland and Cashiers

On the edge of Lake Fairfield, with Old Bald Mountain in the distance

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.

John Muir, The Mountains of California 

AUTUMN WHISPERS

All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.

Thomas Wolfe

Nothing stirs the soul like autumn.  We awake from the nepenthean sleep of summer and witness something even more beautiful than we imagined —  more beautiful perhaps because we are forced the recognize the transient nature of what we love.  It is a time for reckoning,  a time to discard the frivolous and return to our essence, a time to prepare for the coming winter.  That is why, as Thomas Wolfe observed, all things point to home in late October.  Home is the place where our hearts find solace, the place where our authentic lives are rooted, the place where we will wait like the ancients for the reassurance of another spring.

Some of our finest poets have meditated on the implications of autumn for the human spirit.  What they have to say is much of what I feel during these closing days of October. What you take from these poems will depend upon where you are at this point in your own personal journey.  Enjoy.

                                    A certain day became a presence to me;

                                    there it was, confronting me -- a sky, air, light:

                                    a being.  And before it started to descend

                                    from the height of noon, it leaned over

                                    and struck my shoulder as if with

                                    the flat of a sword, granting me

                                    honor and a task.  The day's blow

                                    rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened,

                                    and what I heard was my whole self 

                                    saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Denise Levertov

"Variation on a Theme by Rilke"

                                     Withered vines, gnarled trees, twilight crows,

                                     river flowing beneath the little bridge,

                                     past someone's home.

                                     The wind blows from the west

                                     where the sun sets, it blows

                                     across the ancient road,

                                     across the bony horse,

                                     across the despairing man

                                     who stands at heaven's edge.

Ma Chih-Yuan

"Meditation in Autumn"

                                     Nature's first green is gold,
                                     Her hardest hue to hold.
                                     Her early leaf's a flower;
                                     But only so an hour.
                                     Then leaf subsides to leaf.
                                     So Eden sank to grief,
                                     So dawn goes down to day.
                                     Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

         

                                  Lord, it is time.  The summer was so great,

                                  Impose upon the sundials now your shadows

                                  and round the meadows let the winds rotate.

                                      

                                  Command the last fruits to incarnadine;

                                  vouchsafe, to urge them on into completeness,

                                  yet two more south-like days; and that last

                                        sweetness,

                                  inveigle it into the heavy vine.

                                  He'll not build now, who has no house awaiting.

                                  Who's now alone, for long will so remain:

                                  sit late, read, write long letters, and again

                                  return to restless perambulating

                                  the avenues of parks when leaves downrain.

Rilke

"Autumn Day"

                                   The leaves are falling, falling as from far,

                                    as though above were withering farthest gardens;

                                    they fall with a denying attitude.

                                    And by night, down into solitude,

                                    the heavy earth falls far from every star.

                                    We are all falling.  This hand's falling too —

                                    and have this falling-sickness none withstands.

                                    And yet there's One whose gently-holding hands

                                    this universal falling can't fall through.

   

Rilke
"Autumn"

Peace to Everyone!