Change

My thesaurus has over 40 synonyms for change: adjustment, shift, metamorphosis, transformation, transition and onward.  With the autumnal shift we look on change as a natural transformation from season to season, shifting from summer to fall, triggered by the internal metamorphosis of our ancient tree friends who transition the color of their own skin from lively green to the splendor of oranges and reds.  Leaves are now starting to change.  What takes place in the trees speaks to change with many tones.  

As the nights lengthen, the cooling deepens and the cycle engages - trees respond.  Chlorophyll, after a summer season of food production, begins to break down.  For five to six months its highly active work generated both life for the plant and was the green we see in the life of the leaf.   As its role wanes in the fall, the green slips with it.  Dominant photosynthetic activities give way to the oranges and yellows of the carotenes and xanthophyll.  These after laying in wait all season have a short dance in the limelight before the leaf fades to the inevitable.  As leaves struggle in the autumn of their own lives the tree itself reacts.  With the slowing of food production from their integral lifeblood they realize hibernation looms close.  Slowly they begin to separate themselves from their leaves.  A layer of cells begins to grow across the union where the leaf petal meets the stem.  As this happens the tree seals itself at that wound so that as the leaf drops no trouble can attack whilst in this tender stage of his cycle.  Eventually the leaf falls off.  The tree lies dormant with this change and what remains at the transition point between the loss of life and the need to move on, is what we call a scar.  Truly the botanical name is a leaf scar.  Sounding very human is it not?

Nature certainly - trees, leaves…seasons, all enlighten us on change.  As transient beings, here for only a season of our own, marked with a beginning and an end, these events often slip through our consciousness.  The first of which is that with all the synonyms given for change none have to do with death.  Yet death and loss is exactly what brings change.  Changing a job is the loss of a past experience and the loss of a comfortable daily routine, change in a relationship or a home is to never go back to a place of love and safety.  Change of seasons and all its colorful glory is the death of a leaf.  To fall gently to the ground and to re-enter the cycle of our world never to feel the gentle breeze on her skin again.  Even change from something unhealthy is a loss; one we look back on, carrying the pain etched into our minds for a long time.  Change is the human experience of loss.  And, like fall it comes with a series of similarities.  As we approach the loss we look on the experience, soon to be the past, with new eyes.  The more subtle colors that were there all along begin to show through as the bulk of the soon past slips to a stop.  Details never noticed because of one thing or another float to the top like the yellow of the tulip tree, which was there the whole season but can only now show itself with the dominant noise of green gone.  We, like the tree, prepare for this loss creating a barrier to care for ourselves, moving forward into unknowns.  Slowly we cover and protect against what will soon leave us vulnerable.  The experience drops away, good or bad, to the past and to its death.  What we are left with, to carry on deep into the future, is a scar.  One, like the trees, that tells our story.  That marks a milestone in our lineage never to loose in the shifting from season to season.

At this union of past and future we too lay dormant.  This natural cycle, happening in every aspect of the world, humanity also takes the time to rest, to evaluate the future and to look back on the loss of an experience just passed.  The gardens will never see the summer of 2015 again.  They leave a scar like a totem marking a life monument.  For some that is a loss to celebrate.  For most we will mourn.  Yet universally we have no choice but to move forward into the new and through a dormancy that will be used to educate and shape our future.  Soon a new warm sun will shine on our garden.  Changes that take place will be measurable and positive.  Students will again be working in the dirt.  Food will spring from the sandy loam that blesses our county.  With that new sun; dendritic support from community will reach out for symbiotic feeding from the leaves that again dance on a warm summer breeze.