#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Enchanted Autumn

“If we do not live, speak and think in the language of enchantment, including naming angels and recognizing spirits…then the soul will go out of our lives and communities, and we will wonder why nothing seems to hold together and nothing seems to have value any more.”

- Thomas Moore ,"The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life"

When I was a girl in autumn, trees were dwellings; broken branches were horses that could be ridden, bareback, to neighbor’s farms. A trickling brook was a roaring river, rapids that must be crossed on necessary journeys to town for food, for supplies. Pine needles could be stewed in soup over an imaginary campfire. Age, occupation, marital status, motherhood – these were decisions that could be imagined, roles that could be played.

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”

~John Muir

This morning I turned gold under the trees. I glowed. I shone. I was mostly gold, and the tips of my fingers turned blood red. Oh, it rained so hard, and the wind blew, it was a wicked storm to be blown in, and such an extra pleasure to reach home, wet and cold, to be warmed in my sixty-bones, my legs feeling strong and sturdy and hardy as a girl’s.