November

"November comes and November goes, with the last red berries and the first white snows.
With night coming early, and dawn coming late, and ice in the bucket and frost by the gate.
The fires burn and the kettles sing, and earth sinks to rest until next spring." -Elizabeth Coatsworth

November is the month of the saints, all souls, remembrance day, everything in nature dying around us, but also a month of rebirth.  I thought of how the earth knows how to renew itself, how the leaves fall, sheltering the grass and the dirt, how animals know when to make their winter resting places and when to retreat. Why have we lost touch with this within ourselves?? Why do we complain of the cold, damp, rain, snow and the darkness? This is a blessing of mother earth, because without the darkness of the next couple of months, without the shedding of the colours of fall - the spring will not blossom, the birds will not sing, and we would stay forever in darkness. 

November also marks my birthday month.  I always loved November, not because it is the month of my birth, but because the beauty that I see in this month, the beauty in remembering the fallen, remembering the souls that have passed, and remembering the saints.  How could you not be touched by this month?? It is a month to remember those who defended our great nation, those close to us who have passed and every saint who has watched over the children of God as they walk their path on earth.

For me November marks the beginning of a rebirth, reinvention, and a new beginning...the time has come for me to shed the skin of the past, release the fears and doubts of the past with love and peace, accept what has come to pass, accept that not everyone loved me, even if I loved them, and that with each day that passes instead of darkness and damp, I see sun and warmth...coming from my heart.

So, I leave you with the last lines of Carl Sandburg's poem "Prairie"

   I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
   I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
   a sun dropped in the west.
   I tell you there is nothing in the world
   only an ocean of tomorrows,
   a sky of tomorrows.
 
xoxo
BT&HB