October is my favorite month of the year.
It is the month that invites us to pull on wool sweaters, wrap ourselves in warm scarves, pull on our boots, and head outside. Punctuated by blazing blue skies, vibrant colors, falling temperatures, and changing weather patterns, October is a threshold month, marking the middle of autumn. It says that summer is over, but not quite yet. Winter is coming, but not quite yet. Time seems to slow down even as the passing of the year speeds up. This month says that there is still time to bask in the light and breathe in the fresh air. It calls on us to make the most of our shortening days, because darkness is on the way. Not a darkness to be feared, but welcomed, as it beckons us inward to take stock of what has been, where we are, and where life might be calling us.
October is my favorite month of the year.
It is the month when life dances with death, as the fullness of the harvest makes way for the emptiness of winter. We celebrate the accumulated fruits of our labor even as we anticipate the upcoming months of bare trees, frozen ground, and the plants and animals that must go dormant in order to gather the strength to rise again. An elder among the months, October reminds us that for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. It invites us to offer all of our accumulated experience and hard earned wisdom to the world within our reach. It cheers us on, and reminds us that ending well matters, be that a year or a life. In this liminal space between summer and winter, we are called to live into our wholeness, or in the words of Ian Morgan Cron in his bookThe Road Back To You “…to run and complete the errand on which God has sent us here.” These are awesome days. Ones not to be squandered, but lived with abandon.
October is my favorite month of the year.
An elder among us, I am living in the October of my life. A time to offer my own accumulated experience and hard earned wisdom to the world within my reach. A time to celebrate the fullness of my harvest, and to anticipate all that is to come in whatever time I have left on the planet. It the time to continue to live well now so as to end well then. These are awesome days. Ones not to be squandered, but lived with abandon.
I was born on October 12, 1953, and today marks my 70th trip around the sun.
No wonder October is my favorite month of the year.
(Written with gratitude for all who have loved me along the trail. Onward we go, together.)
