Dirt roads are to fall as pie crust is to apple pie. The cinnamons of browns and the tart greens, ripe reds, and aging yellows of fall foliage fill the air with visual and scent signals telling us to slow down, to walk the tree tunnel, within its kaleidoscope of changing colors.

“Thus, the kaleidoscope has taken on a new meaning for me. It represents the initiative we all must take to sustain beauty in our lives and land in the right place, as life continues to change and we are continuously challenged.” Ken Makovsky, What Kaleidoscopes Communicate.

Stepping off the pavement onto the hard-packed byroad resets my pace, as my walk becomes a jaunt. Perhaps my destination will also be reset - to an endless today. When I drive my thoughts are racing ahead to obligations and destinations, nearly severing my tether to the task at hand, never mind the life swirling by me as though caught up in the blur of a tornado. I steer thousands of pounds of steel cutting through earthen passageways with the uncaring, uncompromising, uninterested mindset of a runaway locomotive that cannot alter its course or destination but races to oblivion nonetheless.

Today, my thoughts drift in accordance with the breeze, arriving at different ports with each leaf that sails dallying its way in the sanctity of passage to a new resting site.

Purple and pink asters remind me of compressed time, late flowers signaling the end of a season, drawing Bumblebees and Hoverflies whose constancy is now a forced narrative given so few other blooms remain.

How I too wish to feed heavily on this final course on nature’s table, without thought or knowledge of tomorrow or yesterday. How different might I live if my language had no concept of the flow of time?

Dirt roads, during Full Corn Moon and in Full Hunter’s Moon (Algonquin names) sprinkle sugar atop apple pie crusts, as the sun glistens off the morning dew, tickling trickling brooks, and catching the wingtip of a migrating warbler searching for caterpillars in the overhanging canopy of an old and overlooked Wild Crabapple tree (Malus coronaria).

Chattering from a dissident red squirrel, pebbles shifting under my crunching feet, thumping of grouse wings against breast, a chorus of wind songs as varied as that of the birds; nature’s sounds make no more noise than a harp yet many a melody does she fold onto this corridor.

Narrower, my lane becomes, my calm and content feelings embellished by a cascade of quiet natural sounds and other signs of life. Squeezed out are my preconceived destinations and expectations. No room in this realm for the weather of tomorrow or yesterday. I barely can fit my shoulders into this kaleidoscope tunnel of changing colors. No racing thoughts, apprehensions, anxiety, only room for absorbing what is here and now. A narrow view for sure. One I am happy to entertain as long as my feet will carry me along this corridor of bliss.

Perhaps when back on the less natural road of time I will go slow enough to reduce the blur, take a less expansive view of my life, and a wider, more comprehensive, and observant view of life around me.

Bernie

Thankful for the gifts from the life of nature's family.