Another Ode to Autumn

Autumn – John Keats’ ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ has been a long time coming to this subtropical part of the world. Since early November we have been plagued by relentlessly high temperatures and debilitating humidity; and afternoon storms that tore through the city leaving a trail of destruction behind them. Last Friday we received record-breaking rainfall in a very short period of time, bringing more destruction but worst of all, the devastation of lives lost in the torrent. The normally serene and lovely Kedron Brook that meanders its way to the sea through the park adjacent to my home, rose swiftly and forcefully, uprooting trees, closing the road to traffic and turning the park into a lake. Then the water receded, and the clean-ups began, again. The sun shone, the birds sang, peace was restored, at least to this part of the city.  

Yesterday I went for a walk to the park and I was filled with delight at the beauty of this autumn day. I reflected on  the Keats’ poem Ode to Autumn – and its opening lines ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, close bosom friend of the maturing sun’. Shortly after composing this poem, Keats wrote to a friend saying, “how beautiful the season is now. How fine the air – a temperate sharpness about it….This struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it.” I imagined that it was such a day as today, that Keats experienced: the sky a clear cloudless blue; a mellowness in the air; the flowers of Autumn blooming brightly; and best of all, the invitation to bask in the sun that has lost its sting.  On days like this my soul rejoices in the abundance and beauty of God and creation and the joy of being alive.

Joan Chittister expresses this beautifully in the following excerpt from her book Following the Path: the Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose and Joy:

“Life is pure flame,” Thomas Browne wrote, “and we live by an invisible sun within us.” It is this invisible sun, this light within, this call to something worthwhile in life that is meant to dispel life’s darkness. It gives us our reason to be. And it is this call to the fullness of ourselves that drives us on, that becomes our internal measure of worth and, in the end, it is, as well, the judge of our quality of happiness.

Life is not just about having a job. Life is about responding to the great human call to make life more than a series of aimless occupations. A call is a sacred reason to be alive.

The spiritual value of discovering the star by which we are steering the entire rest of our lives shapes us both internally and publicly. It affects the way we feel about ourselves, it determines how we relate to others, it defines our place in the world, and it provides a sense of purpose to life. When those things are defined, the emptiness goes, the rootlessness goes, the capriciousness of life that eats away at the heart of us disappears. Days may be difficult after that, yes, but they at least have a sense of meaning. We are no longer simply spinning around in the space called our lives, fearful of the future, dissatisfied with the present. We are now going someplace for a reason larger than ourselves and feeling more humanly significant than simply self-important.

This beautiful day brought another joy to my life. It is my niece’s 22nd birthday and later, as we celebrated, I rejoiced in  her creativity, her sweet nature, and most of all, her presence in my life.