Summer came early this year.  Long before the school term ended, ninety-degree weather had students dreaming of being outdoors rather than sitting in a classroom and trying to pay attention to their studies.  It seemed as though the calendar lost some pages last May, and summer is two weeks ahead of itself.  Still the daytime temperatures soar to the nineties, but the nights are becoming cooler, and the endless summer is suddenly moving toward Fall.

The Cosmos flowers that delighted us all summer long now show their age.

Some already have begun to drop their seeds in preparation for next year’s renewal.

I walk through my garden and notice the changes.  The avalanche of tomatoes has slowed to a manageable flow.  The plants begin to yellow, and I feel the twinge of sadness that always accompanies endings.  Perhaps, like summer, Fall will also arrive two weeks early.  The apples that usually ripen in mid-September already beg to be picked; and we hover in a space that resembles summer as Autumn comes crashing into town.  The birds know.  They gather in flocks and feed on the seeds that have fallen to the ground, preparing themselves for their yearly migration to their wintertime homes.

I take it all in, like a snapshot I can carry through the cold months that lie ahead.  I think of my own life and how its cycles imitate those of nature.  The cosmos that now drop their seeds to the earth grew on volunteer plants that sprang from the seeds of last year’s dying flowers.  It takes some seasons of death and rebirth for us to discover that there is no need to mourn the beautiful things that have lived for a time and then moved on.  We learn that the dying of one flower is not only an ending, but also the beginning of renewed beauty that will burst to existence when winter is over and delight us with its birth when the next springtime comes.

I give thanks for the endings that help me to understand that life will renew and go on.  On Halloween night, I will light a fire; and I will gather a piece of each plant of my garden.  As, one by one, I place them into the fire, I will give thanks for all they have provided me — both sustenance and beauty — and send them off with a proper farewell.  There will be no sadness or tears on that night, for it will be the beginning of the wait for renewal when the winds of winter give way to the green of Spring.