As Dry Leaves that Before the Wild Hurricane Fly

Every so often I am struck with beauty of this world and the utter elegance of creation. It is times like these that I find it hard not to believe in the existence of some higher power, because could such perfection arise from the chaos of the void without some intellect shaping it? The thought that it could leaves me as humbled and awestruck as our most ancient of ancestors must have been before the monumental force of this world. I feel the need to reduce it to something managable, something more my size. Is it any wonder then that religion in some form or another has survived for millenia?

Take the apple. It falls from the tree to the ground. As it lays there it begins to rot, eventually leaving only the seeds to sink into the mulch of fruit and leaves and sprout a new tree. But a tree can’t grow in its parent’s shadow. Nature made that apple sweet and nourishing so that animals would eat it, carrying the seeds in their bodies to be eliminated far from the shadow of that parent tree. The animal is nourished by the apple and the apple is nourished by the animal’s waste. And beyond simple nourishment, the apple provides us with pleasure. Is there anything more satisfying than biting into a deep red apple and feeling the crisp flesh against your lips and tongue; hearing the snap as you pull a bite into your mouth and it splits away from the fruit. The juice and sweetness flooding your mouth. It is the essence of an autumn day, a deeply sensual experience.

Autumn is an extremely sensual season. The vibrant oranges and reds of the trees against the impossibly blue sky; the smell of rotting leaves and woodsmoke in the air; the chill in the air against your skin; the dry rustle of the leaves on the ground; the coolness of apples and grapes, the richness of squash and roasted game. We are drunk with Nature’s abundance, and I can feel the blood coursing through my arms and legs, light-headed with the spirit of the season. The last revel before the deep slumber of winter. Spring is the first stirrings of arousal; Summer, the easy motion of two bodies in unison; and Winter is the sleep of satisfied lovers, wrapped in each other’s arms… But Autumn is the orgasm, the climactic glory of the world, rendering me trembling and speechless.

Autumn turns me on in the truest sense. My cheeks are flushed, my pupils dilated, my heart trips, and my breath catches. The beauty of it aches, a wonderful anguish that I cannot name, that makes me want to shout out loud, and laugh hysterically, and weep at my own small place in the world.

~Liz