View from the Pier

This photo was taken on a walk with my husband through the woods near where he grew up in Madison, Connecticut. The air was crisp and clean, the sun streaming through the leaves felt warm on our faces and the foliage was absolutely glorious to behold.  This sturdy, solid and iconic red covered bridge seemed to somehow rest on the delicate, golden boughs of the trees on the brook’s banks.  It was almost an optical illusion, this massive, manmade construction floating above running water moving ever forward, and alongside the graceful curves of tawny branches.

Every year, the transformation of foliage from the more subdued and standardized green palette of summer to the riotous range of fall’s fiery colors seems miraculous to me.  Science attributes this annual marvel to three variables:  leaf pigment, length of night, and weather.

Just as every leaf is unique, so is every person.  While we all share certain of the same basic characteristics, our exact set of experiences, and how we process them–our photosynthesis, if you will–is distinct to us.  The length of our respective “dark nights of the soul” varies between us.  Some have had to endure longer periods without sunlight, and its nurturing, healing comfort.   Like the leaves, the current of external events that flow around us shape and mold us.  The climate conditions of the weather in our world–hot or cold, wet or dry–make the difference in the intensity of the colors we show.  And yet, like those of New England’s beloved maple, all leaves on the Family Tree will eventually flutter and fall to the ground.

Edward, Lord Herbert of Chirbury, like most of us humans, was a study in contrasts.  Called a “consummate egotist” who claimed in his autobiography to have the “sweetest smelling sweat” and to have been irresistible to women, particularly those who were married, he was also a poet and a philosopher.  No doubt his conceit and adultery prompted resentment in a few quarters and he himself is said to have died depressed and disappointed that his services to the Crown weren’t properly acknowledged.

Herbert developed a theory of “Religious Common Notions” and based this belief system on rational thinking.  He is said to have denied the existence of miracles and questioned the concept of “revelations.”

I wonder about that verdict of Herbert’s beliefs, after coming across today’s quote.  I’ve had a few brilliant, flaming, scarlet resentments in my time.  Much like the changing color of the leaves, there is no uniform timetable for my resentments to fade, wither and fall away; it seems to always be a slow and gradual process.  The eventual epiphany I experience in each instance of resentment is that its subject and I are but leaves on the same tree.  For me, that has often been nothing short of a miracle.

For more pictures of New England’s fall foliage, see the site’s “Travel Photos” or “Store.”

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/Spfo/pubs/misc/leaves/leaves.htm

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/chirbury/chirbio.htm

http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?A=2716&Q=325182

http://www.friendsctstateparks.org/parks/chatfield_hollow.htm

http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.aspx?trailid=XFA032-038#

Leave a Reply