Cannon Beach Oregon on the Autumn Equinox, Sept. 23, 2018
| Autumn Is... Season of the Oak, Acorn bounty for jay, crow, Squirrel, deer and turkey. Season of the spider: Large, striped orb-weaver, Spinning its compass-aligned, Symmetrical web. Season of weather: Dry, cool winds, Blue sky and blazing sun, After a long, cold summer. Harvest season: Tomatoes, squash, apples, Sauce, soup, pies, Put away for Winter. Senior citizen years, Not yet old but on the way, Retired, relaxed, Mature life outlook. The calm season, Time to deeply breathe, Before the storms of Winter, ...is Autumn. Seasons Seasons come and seasons go, Heralded by changing weather, Year in, year out, without fail, Ever and forever. Colorful Fall cedes to cold Winter, From which, bright Spring bursts forth, Then slows to languid Summer, Which cools to Autumn once again. Ecosystems evolve as well. Dark, damp swamps Cede to bright meadows, On to forests, and back again.. Cultures too, come and go, Heralded by new ideas or religions, Are born, grow, flourish and then Fade into history. But is this ever so? Does the ecosystem revert, Do cultures repeat, Are the seasons ever the same? Or are we in a spiral, Ever-changing but Never repeating? A spiral- up or down? Autumn of Life You and I—we are In the Autumn of life, A season of calm. Mature oak, acorns falling To feed the wildlife, Or wait beneath. Season of harvest, Ample reward for Spring’s garden toils. Season of clement weather, Fiery sunsets, Cool evening breezes. And yes, the leaves will fall, The acorns will be eaten, The rains will come… But the oak will remain, Strong branches outspread, Sheltering our Winter graves. Hidden acorns will sprout Grow into vibrant saplings That leaf out to youth's Spring. MW A song for troubled times, as pertinent today as when it was written. | Being is Becoming From pagan religions of every sort, To Catholicism's mystical gospel, To Protestantism's rending protest, To skepticism and disbelief. From forest, hunt and bow and arrow, To the land, farm, horse and plough, To cities, industries and products galore, To the electronic world of computers. From oral traditions's storytelling, To parchment and the pen and writing. To the printing press and books, To the digital world of electronics. Revolutionary evolution has had its way. What will come next is hard to say. Becoming and Unbecoming Cultures have come and gone, They will continue to come and go, And ours is no exception, Not here to stay forever. Cultures are spawned by religions, Religions are born of belief, Belief is the fruit of need, Of need for solace and promise. Cultures flourish in belief, Belief wears thin in time, Suspicion then leads to doubt, Doubt to disbelief, Disbelief to deconstruction, The demise of a culture spent. Cultural voids are chaotic, Painful and bewildering, Respite is sought anew, New belief is found, A new religion is born, Yet another culture is spawned. These changes are never ending, For basic human needs Will seek and find their balm In ever-changing religions, In cultures that come and go. Mourn and then rejoice. Cultural Evolution Religion was once our world of thought, The Humanities then became top interest, The Sciences soon followed to the fore, The Electronics Age next flexed its muscles, And now the Financial World is center stage. Who knows what Western Culture Still holds in store! -JM Topical Asides by JM Our Waning Culture Too much that is negative is simply ascribed to material poverty, too little to our Western World's growing poverty of belief and values. Ours is less a social problem than a cultural illness. Our old culture is dying and a new has yet to be born. We are the blighted, fated to experience both the agony of death and the pain of birth. Things Come and Things Go Like the Industrial Revolution before it, our Electronics Age began as an awesome boon, and like the Industrial Revolution, the Electronics Age will in due time end as an irksome game. Nothing is good but that it is also bad. And nothing is here to stay! Religion and Culture A belief germinates, spreads, becomes a religion and religion, in turn, spawns a culture. Religion and culture wax and peak, then belief wanes and culture fades. Epigrams by the Master Epigrammatist: All things have their day, all things age and all things eventually go away. Truths are time-bound cultural consensus and not timeless universal absolutes. People are at their best when times are at their worst. JM |
I know neither the seasonal cycle that governs wild animals' lives, nor the clock that governs human lives. I know only my daily pattern. There is comfort in patterns.