Last September was a doozy! This one is shaping up to be substantially more important, in the scheme of things. You'll hear all about that very soon, but for now, there is only my persistent, impossible rambling.
You might see the ninth month as a time for beginnings -- in the US, it's when we go back to school, and it calls ahead to the Holiday Season (including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's....).
But if it's the beginning of anything, it's the beginning of the end. Summer passes, winter beckons, and we stand in the threshold. The leaves turning is a beautiful sight, but it's nothing more than a particularly pretty marker of death.
Autumn is a time of change. We gather up what little we've managed to grow this year, and we hope it's enough to carry us forward into the next. In the process, we learn a little more about ourselves, and decide whether we'll do things differently next time.
Winters can be easy or hard, and not everyone survives. Autumn is always easy in comparison. In times of plenty, it can feel right to celebrate the excess, rather than save up. You've earned it, yes. And so you earn whatever winter brings. It can be life, it can be death; neither matters. The lesson is what's important.
All it means to survive -- all you get from lasting through the winter -- is a chance to do it again. A self-serving reason, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Learning begets the desire to learn. There's a certain evolutionary inevitability to it. And all you want is to stop needing to learn, right? That's what knowledge must be.
Hello, September, and goodbye. Ave atque vale. You were the mostly month, the one that promised much less than it delivered. You were the stolid, able companion of my compassion, which is gone. Come and go like the waves, and I'll be here.
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