Pamela Stead Jones

“Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.”

– Faith Baldwin

Bittersweet Autumn is in full swing.  Only a week ago, the faintest tinge of color had begun to kiss the treetops.  This week, the forest is flaming with orange and yellow and, too soon, brown.  This has been a strange year for weather.  There has been no easing into one season as another passes with dignity.  Only days after the heavy snows last winter, Spring popped into existence, mingling pale greens with the still-melting mounds of white.  Then Summer landed with a thud and took our breath away with 90-degree days that stretched endless and dry through the start of school.

As one who loves Autumn, I have been waiting with curiosity to see how my paradoxical season would arrive this year.  I call Autumn paradoxical and bittersweet, because it is a time of such radiant color and beauty that is wrapped around decay and endings that we know will follow.  The sweet ripe apples hang on every tree in the orchard.  The overripe ones fall to the ground and begin to shed an aroma that makes me thirst for fresh-pressed cider.  The flaming treetops that dance in the breeze and stand in stark contrast to the pale blue sky soon release their leaves to the ground below.  I walk on a carpet of yellow and gold and take in the scent of leaf-mold and mud until all is brown and leaf becomes soil, as though its existence might have been a dream.

This is the paradox of Autumn — the color and dying; the bright sunlight and the crisp, cool air, the sweetness of the harvest, and the inevitable decay that prepares the earth for the silence of winter.  We know that all these things will lead to another Spring; but as autumn rushes by on the wings of the wind, we can only stand breathless and take it all it.  We must savor the elusive beauty of Fall and hold it in our memory when the branches are bare and winter lies silently on the land.

Just as Summer landed so abruptly, I watch this year’s Autumn happen in an instant.  It’s always that way, I suppose; but this year, more than ever, I would love to linger amid the color for just one more moment.

“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.”

– Alfred Bernhard Nobel

This strikes me as the definition of genius — to have a thousand ideas and have one of them turn out to be good.  The important thing is to keep on thinking and keep on pursuing what you believe is good and right.  I believe that each of us carries genius within us.  All we need to do is connect our brain with our heart and our spirit and continue to find new ways to express what is good and true.

It is easy to fall into a pattern of re-trying the same old ideas again and again.  Our lives can become like the shampoo bottle instructions — “Lather, Rinse, Repeat.”  For some reason it feels safer to repeat the same old actions that haven’t worked a hundred times before than to step beyond our past failure and frustration into the unknown.  We, as humans, are afraid of the unknown.  The ironic thing is that most of the pivotal moments in our lives occur when we venture there.  We must remember each day that although there may be some frightening things in the unexplored parts of our world and ourselves, there are wonderful and miraculous things there, too.

Think of all the thoughts and initiatives and discoveries that you label as “genius.”  Then tear down your own barriers and dare to step beyond the limits of your safety — the limitations of “lather, rinse, repeat.”  Remember that not every good idea needs to succeed.  Not every seed you plant will germinate and grow.  Be satisfied that you are thinking — that you are planting.  Each of us is born with the potential for genius, and the most important ingredient in genius is the courage to persevere until we discover something that brings good to our world.

Alfred Bernhard Nobel also said:

“I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its result.”

He was skeptical, but we all know about the Nobel Prize for Peace.  We must not judge our ideas as good or bad so long as they are true and right.  We may not be around to see whether they turn out well or not, but we must trust that each contribution has the potential for growth.  We are enjoying the results of Nobel’s vision.  Perhaps there will be people, unknown to us, who will reap our harvest as well.

“Prayer is not asking.  It is a longing of the soul.  It is daily admission of one’s weaknesses.  It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

Today is one of those days when our souls long to be able to find the words that would allow us to ask.  We do our best to express what our hearts long for — good outcomes, healing, protection –but in the end we can only hope that God will know the best outcome that lies beyond our wildest dreams.  Before the day is over, our grand-nephew, Connor, will be in the operating room.  There, a skilled surgeon will use his expertise and experience as he removes a tumor from the pituitary gland of an eight-year-old.  Those of us whose children have been healthy and without the need for such treatment shudder as we imagine what his parents feel as they prepare their son — and themselves — for such a frightening day.  We wish we could know exactly how they feel so that we could offer more support; but in the next breath, we are thankful that we don’t know and can only imagine.

We search for just the right things to say or do; and once again, we are reminded of our limitations — of our human condition — and we open our hearts in longing and prayer to the One who created us all.

Dear God,

You know our hearts — the longing, the fear, the sadness, the hope, the trembling, the weakness — all the things we speak and all the things we cannot put into words.  We hold in our hearts and minds an image of Connor, happy and healthy and strong and carefree, and we long to see that image become reality.  You see the hearts of everyone involved — the child, the parents, the family, the friends, the doctors, the nurses — and we trust that you will hear the longing for the healing of a little boy whose life has been interrupted by a tumor.  Wrap him in healing and bring him safely through the challenges of today.  It is said that when one person is healed it heals the whole world.  We pray that Connor’s healing will bring healing and hope to others, too, and that through his experience the world will be healed.  Amen.

Perhaps we should be offering these prayers daily; because somewhere in the world, each day, there is a family struggling with the illness of a loved one.  Maybe this is how the healing spreads.  Through the experience of pain we learn compassion, as we grow in the understanding of the feelings of others that we feel again when we see them struggle in the same way.  Perhaps this is the way the world is healed.  For Connor, the healing will be a physical one.  For the rest of us, as we grow in compassion and understanding, the healing will be one of the spirit.  We thank you, God, for Connor and for his courage and for his healing.  We ask that the healing we gain through this experience will increase our compassion and awaken our love for all who suffer.  Amen.

“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”

– Lin Yutang

Each morning, when we first open our eyes, we are faced with a choice.  How will we choose to live today?  This morning I have chosen to live in Hope.  There are many people among those I love who face serious challenges this week.  Three are innocent children who are headed for medical treatment at some fine hospitals.  Some are the parents of these children, whose ability to face fear and greet it with courage will offer hope to their little ones.  Some wrestle with difficult decisions and personal demons that make their lives more burden than joy.  There simply are times when we have no solutions to offer and no sense to make of the hardships that suddenly block the road we travel.  These are the opportunities we have to choose Hope — to blaze a new trail in a direction never traveled before.  When enough of us band together and choose this trail, our walking soon makes it a well-traveled road and the Hope we carry with us can erase fear and carry us to the other side of the obstacles.

My granddaughter, Cheyenne, gave me a refresher course in Hope this weekend.  It is a tradition in our area for communities to host Halloween parades.  Bands play, and schools, clubs, and families join together to honor the ancient tradition of wearing disguises on Halloween.  Some costumes are clever and cute; some portray an ideal shared by the group wearing them; some simply are ghoulish and frightening, and the people wearing these sometimes forget how real they are to small children.  As we stood in front of Cheyenne’s house, waiting for the parade to come, I held my tiny girl so she could see over the crowd of bystanders whose knees blocked her view.  A silent man walked by, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt.  A hood from a layered sweatshirt rose from his collar and held in place a mask of an eerie jack-o-lantern with glowing yellow eyes.  His appearance was startling, but his silence gave him a creepy air that completed his plan.

Cheyenne pointed to him as he approached us.

“Grandma,” she asked, “is he scary?”

“No,” I answered, “I think he’s funny.”

As he came closer, Cheyenne pointed toward his eerie mask and proclaimed, “You are FUNNY!”

Even when he came so close that his nose almost touched hers, she squealed with delight and laughed at the funny pumpkin head.  It was the decision, in that split-second moment, to let the little girl in the Tinkerbell dress see potential fear as something different, that allowed her the courage to laugh, literally, in the face of something frightening.

That is Hope.  It is the courage that rises above our ability to solve a problem or challenge.  It is the tiny flicker of light in our hearts that dispels our dark fears.  That experience with Cheyenne and the Pumpkin Head man reminded me not to overlook Hope as the week unfolds.  If we can stand by the people whose challenges are difficult and very real —  if they can ask us, “is this scary?” and we can respond by taking their hand and walking toward the obstacle — perhaps, together, we can let the light of hope show us the next step to take as we blaze a new trail to healing.

“Too often man handles life as he does the bad weather.  He whiles away the time as he waits for it to stop.”

– Alfred Polgar

A nor’easter blew into town this week.  Rain fell in torrents that cleaned the streets and filled the gutters with rushing water that swept them clean and finally gurgled into the storm sewer below the ground.  The winds blew and challenged the trees to hold onto their branches.  The air was filled with hundreds of colorful leaves, all falling at once and hastening the progress of Fall.  As Autumn blew by my window, I remembered the glory of summer rain that called me outside to dance in its softness and celebrate the gift of life-bringing water.  Then I recalled the harsh snow of last winter that buried us deep in muffled white and suspended us in a world that seemed to stand still in time.

The soft rains of summer; a cold, windy autumn storm; the deep piles of snow — all bring the same gift, wrapped in different packaging, yet we celebrate one and we endure the next.  The showers of Spring bring warming to the frozen ground and release the melting snow from its heaps of white and let the earth claim its bounty.  The cold rain of Fall rushes quickly by and finds its way to the depths of the earth, hurrying ahead of the days when the freeze will limit its journey.  Water brings life to our planet and all who dwell here.  Should we only celebrate the warm summer rain?  Should we only dance when the days are light and warm?

Our lives are a lot like the gift of water as it falls from the heavens to restore our world.  There are days when the music is easy to hear, and our feet begin dancing without hesitation.  There are days when we long for the dancing days and might find ourselves wishing away some of the time we are given.  Not all water falls as soft summer rain, and not all of life unfolds as smooth, sunny days.  We must look beyond the packaging and see the gift that arrives in so many different forms.  We must celebrate when the winds blow, when the mud is deep, and even when time seems frozen and captured by sadness or grief.  Our hearts know the joy of the rain, and our spirits know the joy of living.  They dance, even when our feet are still and we must strain to hear the music.

When the weather is harsh and life brings challenges, let’s remember the joy of the rain in summer.  Dance!

Autumn II

I stare out my window

At treetops, fresh-painted,

And sunlight that beckons

And fast-moving clouds.

My hands press the glass;

It is cold and unyielding.

The Wind howls in sorrow

The leaves fall and die.

I retreat with a shiver

And pull on a sweater.

With hot mug of coffee,

I conjure some warmth

And with one fleeting gasp,

Breathe the last breath of Summer

I wrap in a blanket

To ward off the Cold.

Some nondescript geese

In a noisy formation

Press on through the wind

In their search for the Sun.

(Could I, nondescript,

Dare to join in their journey,

Or am I too earthbound

To never look back?)

Oh, Autumn, you Paradox,

Season of beauty,

Of color and dying

Of Sunlight and Wind!

By the time that I’ve seen you,

You’re already memory.

Bare branches beckon

The Winter to come.

© Pamela Stead Jones 2008

“I saw old Autumn in the misty morn

Stand shadowless like silence, listening

To silence…”

– Thomas Hood

There is a curious phenomenon that occurs only on rare occasions when Nature adds just the right blend of ingredients to her cauldron and conjures silence on a misty morning in Fall.  On one such morning, I found myself drawn away from the paved roads of town and down a muddy path that led into the woods.  The mud soon gave way to a carpet of fallen leaves, smooth and silent, perfectly laid by the rain of night, so that no small edge could catch my foot and whisper the sound of the autumn leaf that rustles as it clears the path for any who might intrude.  I tilt my head downward and watch my feet as they make their way along the disappearing trail, because I need the confirmation that they actually are touching the ground.  Maybe I am walking on a cushion of air that offers no audible confirmation to my presence.

My mind wanders to memories of swimming underwater as a child and imagining how wonderful it would be if I could magically breathe there and spend as much time as I liked in that muted place, removed from the noise and distraction of earthbound existence.  As much as I like the celebratory sounds of living, as much as I like being carried away to soaring heights by the sound of beautiful music, as much as I love the sounds of the beating drums that draw me into community and cause the rhythm of my heart to join with others in a sort of oneness that binds us all as fellow travelers, still I am one who seeks silence.  The shared sounds of life draw me in and remind me that I have a place in the great design as a part of all that is created.  The times spent in silence call me to journey to a holy place where I understand that, as part of Creation, I also carry a part of the Creator who breathed me into existence.

As the woods close around me, I realize that not a bird is calling.  Not a breeze disturbs the trees above or the brush below.  Not a ray of sunlight dances through the air.  Daylight, like sound, is muted by the cottony clouds that hang so low they can touch the ground.  I am caught in a place that is frozen and timeless, as though the One who gives it life has taken a deep breath and now holds it in.  In that world between breaths, I could swear that my own heart has stopped for a moment that lingers in timelessness.  My own breathing, silenced, is not necessary in the space in between the Breaths of life.  How long have I stood here?  I can’t really say for certain.  Perhaps for a second, perhaps an eternity, wrapped in the Silence, I too become Silence.  I want to remain in this place, to linger in the holiness before the next breath.  I sense that the holiness always is with me and carried inside me, although I don’t see it; but being inside it is such a sweet thing that I know I could stay here forever.

The cloud lifts.  The mist rises.  A single ray of sunlight penetrates the treetops.  A breeze kisses my face as the birds begin to sing their praises of the morning.  Once again, the world is re-created, and so am I.  My heart beats with anticipation of what this new gift of creation will bring.  I exhale in the cool morning air and see my breath hang in front of me.  The sounds of the birds is joined by my own laughter as I kick my foot and send a dozen yellow leaves flying ahead of me.  The path reappears, and I listen to my own footsteps as they lead me on to a brand new day.

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:  the truth more first than sun, more last than star…”

– e.e. cummings

It isn’t what I say, although it brings kind words to my lips and tender reassurance spoken in times of need or sorrow.  It is not my courage, although it lies beneath the surface and tells me there is nothing to fear.  It is not my endurance or perseverance, although it often allows me to stand in the face of someone’s anger and have no need to retaliate in kind.  It is not something I do that changes the world, although it has made me who I am and sends me out to continue what it has created.  Although my days here are limited and my body will fade and die and return to the earth, it will go on — in all I have said, in all I have done, in the quiet moments of calm amid the storm, in the trail of beauty I leave behind.  Love.

In all I do or say today, may the Love that endures inspire my words, uphold my desire to build rather than destroy.  May it encourage me, when I feel very small and insignificant, to know that although my own actions cannot change the world, they do add to a greater sort of action that will go on building and changing and creating long after I am gone.  Love.

There is healing that each of us can bring to our world.  All we need to do is be true to our birthright.  All we need to do is acknowledge our Source.  We are Love.  All we need to do is to be ourselves.  Love.

It had rained all night — not a gentle, drizzling rain, but furious downpours punctuated with flashes of lightning and loud explosions of thunder.  One jolt, at 4AM, was enough to make me startle out of deep sleep and sit straight up in bed before the room faded once again into darkness.  Still, by the time 5:30 rolled around the rain had stopped.  It looked as though my day in the Pumpkin Patch would proceed as planned, so I dressed in my warm clothes and made my way to the woods.  Morning mist hung in the air, and the depleted clouds still lingered along the horizon.

I made my way along the muddy trail to my little house, stepping carefully around the puddles that had filled the ruts left by yesterday’s tractors.  Brown and yellow leaves, and occasionally a red one, lay like a trail between the puddles; so I followed the colorful path to a place that seemed far different from the sunny one I had left the day before.  Even the birds were silent.  Maybe they could sense something that escaped me, because soon I found myself taking shelter in the shed and listening to the raindrops of a lingering shower making their way from leaf to leaf as they found a slow path from treetop to earth.  It sounded like the trees were clapping their hands with delight at receiving the gift of water, and I found myself smiling as I listened to the symphony of water bouncing from one leaf to the next.  I tried to remember whether small children would melt in the rain, but my mind was too caught up in the rhythm of the moment to complete the thought.

Gradually, the liquid percussion was replaced by the re-awakening of the birds.  Their singing called me back from the place where I had floated, immersed in the whole experience of being part of the rain.  I dried my props and adjusted my special hat just in time to hear the throaty engine of the tractor starting and the squeals of the children being pulled along in the hay wagon.  The sun began to show itself through the treetops, and each color painted on the leaves became several as sunlight added shadows and highlights to the palette of Fall.  I took a deep breath and just took in the whole scene — the overnight rain, the mist of the morning, the lingering clouds, and the triumphant sun.  My whole being danced with joy, celebrating the gift of a perfect Fall day.

The tractor engine coughed as the driver pretended to run out of gas.  I followed the sound of excited children and climbed up on the back of the wagon.  ”Who heard that storm last night?” I began.  All hands went up in an instant.  ”Would you like to hear a poem that I made up this morning?”  They would.  And so I began:

All night long it rained and rained,

Then the misty morning came.

The fat, round sun came out to play

And pushed the dreary clouds away.

What a beautiful Autumn day!

“The joy of life consists in the exercise of one’s energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience.  To stop means simply to die.  The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.”

– Aleister Crowley

On several occasions I have met people who wake each morning and go to do a job they detest in order to one day arrive at the time when they can retire and “do nothing.”  This always grabs my attention; because when I think of a time when my obligatory work is done, I always think of it as a chance to “do everything.”  Attainable goals are good things.  They allow us to enjoy the satisfaction of progressing through life in ways that reward us  with a sense of competence.  That feeling, in turn, encourages us to set the bar higher and move on toward the next goal.

I enjoy the challenge of setting goals and then going about doing the very best I can to bring those goals to fruition; but the goals I meet in my daily work are only what I do.  My real aspirations lie in who I want to be while I am attaining those goals; and every time I move closer toward the ideal of bringing Love and Light to the world, I discover that the opportunities for growth in this endeavor become more expansive and more exhilarating and bring me more joy than I thought existed the day before.

If short-term goals encourage us to keep striving and success encourages us to test our own limits, I think that is a wonderful thing.  It is through the attaining of small goals that we learn to reach ever higher.  Let’s be careful, though, not to decide that we have arrived at our ideals.  To sell short our chance to pursue infinite growth would be to end our lives before we are ready to leave this earth.  Reach with excitement, grow with joy, let your reach exceed your grasp!