THE FALL

I marvel at the complexity of the English language and the myriad meanings of even a simple word like FALL. The season Fall evokes beautiful imagery of colorful foliage, ripening apples and pumpkin patches and the startling cerulean blue of a sky that is lit with the sun at a lower slant. I love Fall. I love the coolness of the air and the soft smell of woodsy decay. Mushrooms pop up to surprise and delight. Nature is beyond herself in productivity...the trees are heavy with fruit and nuts or dressed to the nines in brilliance. Raptors begin to kettle for their migration South and if you look up any given sunny day, the dragonflys are dancing with tails curled. They appear to be celebrating. We take to the North Pond in our kayaks and the pond lilies...both pink and white are blossoming for the painted turtles and feeding herons. They remind me of lotus blossoms. We went paddling on September 11th. The shallow areas where the grasses grow and the ducks hang out on their islands of mud are still as glass. As we paddle out to the deeper water...passing under the two bridges and through the shallows we are wrapped in silence...stillness...peace. The changing light makes the whole atmosphere vibrate. As we reach deeper water, the wind picks up. I feel in the presence of a remarkable spirit of breath and possibility. I fall in love with fall. And I remember the falling towers...a fall tinged with horror, smoke and dust and chemical debris. My mind provides this moment of utter peace with the distinct contrast of a moment that passed 10 years ago. For some reason, we are riveted to the TV at night...watching video footage of the inside of Tower 1 as the event of 9/11 unfolds. My son Will and Sam too...they are enjoying the filming of documentary footage. They are in my mind as the two brothers who video the events of 9/11 in a remarkable moment of sychronicity. Remembering is important but becoming fixated on the images of horror and trauma does nothing to help our human conciousness grow beyond it's limits of fear. I go to bed and thrash and revision. It's a full moon night and sleep is elusive. I must finally fall asleep because when I wake up it is to a dream of the Earth shaking under me and a wave of water pouring down a mountainside washing us down...a natural disaster. I figure it's because of the images and rememberance of the events and stories of 9/11. I spend the day harvesting...walking in my garden...apologetic to the plants for not being a better weeder. The september phenomenon is that the garden grows way beyond my control because I am so busy harvesting and putting up veggies for winter that I have no time to weed. I feel delinquent. But my priority is to the emerging produce...to get it in and put by before frost. Here in the Western Maine mountains, winter can come fast. Frost can happen anytime. One sure sign of fall is the prediction of frost at night. It's coming. Day after tomorrow according to NOAA. A sure sign. And that afternoon I get the call. My mother has taken a FALL. She fainted and fell on her face as she walked home from Steves Market. There was noone and nothing to break her fall so she damaged her face...broken cheekbones...and a slight bleed in her head. She was taken to Brigham Womens hospital where she was admitted yesterday. Another night of light sleep and visual images that haunt and trouble. The media wants me to think the worst. They train us to remain stuck in that brain track. Today...I choose to focus on the Lotus...the calm beauty of the great Mother and to continue the job of the harvest while I wait for news of my poor wounded human mother. Let a new track be laid for this train of thought that takes me to a higher way of being and thinking and hopefully I can choose a way of being that is healing...calm and light...and send out prayers for her recovery.