Autumn—My Favorite Season

By Sister Rebecca

            Autumn is my favorite season.  After the spring and summer great activities in our lives here at New Skete, I welcome the serenity, the quiet, the longer periods of the darker days in autumn and winter.   I love the beauty of the leaves turning colors: amazing hues of gold, orange, red, and purple; the sight of the corn stalks along roads; the bales of hay; the bright pumpkins in the fields and on doorsteps. 

            As autumn moves into winter, I feel a certain attraction to go inward, for more time for reflection, reading, meditating, and contemplation.   It is a time when we, as a community, are drawn less outward. After the intense spring and summer events—seminars, retreats, concerts, pilgrimage, picnics—I sense a need for a time to re-center, to replenish, and to go inward.

            This season brings back to me the memory of one past autumn in Provence, France, where I lived as a monastic in the foothills of the Alpilles. a chain of limestone mountains of hues of blue, white pearl, and violet depending on the time of day and season.  One day in late October as I was leisurely walking on a dirt road along the margin of our property and that of a neighboring field, I happened upon the farmer.  We exchanged light conversation, and then he pointed to the beehives that lined the other side of the road—the monastery’s side. A year so earlier he had asked if we would allow him to put his hives there so they wouldn’t encroach upon his wheat field, getting in the way of his sowing and reaping. But the bees did get in his way this particular autumn. 

Autumn in Provence - Alpille in the distance   by Van Gogh 1880

            The farmer then described a horror story.  He was harvesting the wheat in his tractor when all of a sudden came a thunderous noise. The bees were swarming—hundreds of them—and began attacking him.  They went for his face and any bit of flesh they could find to sting. He immediately leapt from the tractor, leaving the engine running.  Then the bees pursued the noisy tractor, trying to sting the tractor, especially the leather seat, until the tractor hit a tree stump at the far edge of the field and came to a dead stop.  When all was quiet and still, the bees returned to their hives.

            Honey bees at the onset of autumn, when their sources of food are depleted, retreat into their hives until warmer weather and new blossoms arise in the spring.  At the time of their transition, though, from being “busy bees” gathering pollen and nectar, to that of moving into their secluded inner lives of their hives, they are very likely to become aggressive under certain conditions. They are especially sensitive to the unusual vibrations and the loud noises of machinery, tractors, lawnmowers, and weed whackers.  And they are known to suddenly swarm and aggressively attack noisy humans and animals.  Bees do not actually hibernate, as the worker bees need to generate heat in the enclosure of the hive by beating their wings to keep the queen bee warm. However, they still seem to need a certain quiet for their transition to a slower metabolism and to adapt to restricted food reserves in the hive during the colder months of the year.

            It seems to me that our lives somehow coincide with nature’s adapting to physical seasons. I can relate personally to the story about the honey bees’ need for a quiet transition period from busy lives to the letting go into the quieter times of autumn and winter.  There needs to be less stimulation—even from computer input and output—and moving into a quieter way of life.

 

           
             I agree with Ellen Shuck in her Reflection that autumn and winter nourish wisdom, reflection, quiet, stillness, and time for repair and contemplation.  Although there is activity in our “hives” during these seasons, a different “aura” is present.   With times of more quiet, less stimulation, our bodies and minds are able to regenerate, allowing space for greater vision to emerge as precursor of new life.  It is a time to nurture our soul’s longing for life at a deeper level.

            As happens every autumn, we have been graced with the coming of Thanksgiving, a time of gathering the community together to celebrate the bounty of God’s creation, providing us with food, shelter, warmth, and warm connectedness with one another. In this spirit I would like to share with you our community’s Vespers Litany, which commemorates this feast:

Litany of Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks to Almighty God for gifts so freely bestowed on us.  For the beauty and wonder of your creation, on earth and in the sky and sea and space.

We thank you, Lord.  (after each line)

·         For all that is gracious in the lives of men and women and children, revealing the image of Christ,

·         For our daily food and drink, our homes and families and our friends,

·         For minds to think and hearts to love, and hands to serve,

·         For health and strength to work, and leisure to rest and play,

·         For the brave and courageous, who are patient in suffering and faithful in adversity,

·         For all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice,

·         For the communion of saints, in all times and places,

·         Above all, we give thanks for the great mercies and promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison