Welcoming October

I love October, when cool air creeps into the mornings and lingers to wind down each day. There’s a crisp undercurrent that settles into every crease of time. Our school routine is well underway now, and this rhythm grounds me deeply as my toes begin to tap along with the falling leaves. October is a gateway into autumn, a season of endings and beginnings, of transition and transformation.

October is a time for harvesting. My wildflowers are winding down, and I gather the last of them alongside my goals and dreams, taking stock and reconnecting with intentions that got sidelined in summer’s busyness. Autumn is a season of abundance, and for that I am grateful.

The hot days of summer brought many challenges and their accompanying lessons. My worn garden journal captured what worked and what didn’t, muddy fingerprints punctuating each page. This year happened to be one when the scales tipped toward struggle, it happens some years.

October is made for moments like these though: to breathe in questions and exhale my desire to make sense of it all right now, trusting that He works all things together for good. October offers me the chance to let go of what I can’t control and return to a deeper knowing, that I live within rhythm and seasons, and that time is like music, without which I am aimless.

The garden is saturated with meaning that all too often gets trampled like leaves beneath our feet. My goal for October, as I work with harvested goldenrod to extract shades of yellow, is to observe all that transpired over the summer months and release my striving. As Ordinary time slowly winds down, October invites me to simply be present, to the yellow dye staining my fingers, to the dried flower heads waiting to be saved for seed, to this particular autumn that will never come again. This is enough.