Today is the first full day of Autumn here in Thousand Oaks. No, not according to calendar, but according to wind. It’s just like the wind to ignore the schedule. Autumn is my favorite season. Somehow it makes the most sense to me. None other gets inside me so. Perhaps it is the wind. Hmm, wind, how I love wind. I sleep deeper, dream deeper, breathe deeper, feel deeper in the wind.

Autumn is my Tina—the sun is just setting but she’s already in her pajamas. Funny, I almost never catch her making this change. Quietly she slips into our room to peel off the trappings of the work day. Then there she is, breezing down the hall on fluffy cloud-like slippers, all wrapped up in oversized cotton and flannel. Like her, Autumn is so touchable—unpretentiously draped in folds of fabric. Tina is warm and soft. Not yet ready to sleep, but silently announcing through her pj’s that the time for rest is here. Whatever we do tonight we do in rest—that’s Autumn. Soon the earth will sleep. Like Tina, even now she’s letting go.

In Autumn, the veil thins between the worlds, mystical and marvelous. Trees dance in the wind, set into motion by what cannot be seen yet cannot be denied. Their arms uplifted in praise, they call me to worship, to experience Wind as they do. Ripples upon water, rustling among leaves, billowing smoke from hearth-fire, bluster, tumble, whistle, whisper, howl—everything is movement and sound. This is the third act in the play. the closing scene, full of busy resolutions yet coming to an end. The earth is done with her labors for now. She is sweeping up after the feast. The trees have given and given. Branded in colors of fire, their leaves reveal the flame that has secretly burned all throughout the long green summer. Now they are all used up, and it is a good thing. All used up, not the tree, just its passing labors in the earth. They are drowsy. That utterly blissful drowsiness that comes when you know you’ve done your work well, and you don’t need to stay awake. So now, for just a short time, they will drop their leaves. They will let go.

In the Autumn my favorite things are justified. Fire makes sense. Food tastes better. I can find heaven in the corner of a grilled cheese sandwich that has been dipped in a cup of hot tomato soup. The spirit of a hot cup of coffee is swirling and visible against the cool air. Even catching a cold makes sense in Autumn. Wrap up in a blanket?

Stick my feet in a tub of warm water and feed me soup? In Autumn I do it even when I’m not sick.

In Autumn, the night sky is crystal clear. The moon—bride of the sun—tells me with her reflected light that even though all has gone dark, do not fear, she can still see him, he is still there. Some believe that Autumn is a haunted time because the wind blows and spirits move. I don’t think so. I think we feel the spirits moving, not because they’re staying, but because their going away. Autumn is a time when the spirits and custodians of the earth recede deep beneath its crust to take counsel in secret chambers that we shall never see. There they sip their tea and brandy in front of quiet glowing fires, leaning in to whisper of what has been, and what is to come. For those of us who only dwell on the surface of things, maybe that’s why Autumn feels just a little more lonely. They’ve all gone off. Maybe I miss them and because of it I yearn just a little more for my own fire and the company of good friends.

Here’s hoping that we can feel those mystic moments—together.