Seasons

"Season" noun, sea'son : a time characterized by a particular circumstance or feature So many metaphors pop up naturally when you see a season change. And of course the four seasons associated with agriculture easily represent those in our own lives. We've experienced wintered souls and carefree summer soul-seasons...and everything in between.

But it's the in-between that feels like the hardest. The tension held during the changing of them. In the in between - in the change - there is beauty and pain, living and dying, celebrating and mourning. All held together in the same leaf. The same heart.  I recently found a leaf that was all crunchy and brown at the ends and yet the inside was still green and vibrant with yellows and reds. And I thought: yep. There it is....all together.

Haven't we all felt like that leaf? Holding excitement and sadness all with the same stem? Wonderment and certainty intermingled? Fear and joy? Overlapping as we watch one season move out and one move in. A father walking his daughter down the aisle...the official change of the season happening in just one little walk...what vibrant emotions and colors all held in one soul, one stem!

There has always been great wisdom on the different seasons and how there is a time for everything. A season for everything (google Ecclesiastes 3). But that stage in between...I just want to give it a voice. Because it's real and inevitable and it's part of the whole thing. The here but not yet.  The toddler spitting out real words when you still get to savor and love the funny non-words too... it's sweet and bitter. It's that laugh-cry.

And I know naming something can help with the sacredness, the meaningfulness, the realism involved.

The Crunchy-Colored Leaf. That's my first shot at the in-between name. I'm definitely accepting other ideas. As well as any personal stories where you know just what I'm talking about. May the grace and truth, the laying down and picking up, the laughter and mourning....all together...find it's name. It's place. It's freedom to be.

fall-leaves-close-up