out and about with Rob

It’s autumn. The other day as I was biking in the countryside I startled a pheasant into flight. beautiful. And loud. There are small birds sitting on grass not moving as I pass. A pukeko stood a metre or two away and looked at me with something approaching disdain. It wasn’t scared of me, or I of it, so a nice mutuality existed for a short time before we both got on with our day. I pass a line of poplar trees at one point on my usual ride. The other day they were showering me with leaves. It was like riding down an avenue of sadness for a moment as I realised what the dead leaves meant – summer is on its way out again. The earth has turned one more little bit. Now it’s autumn, or at least the beginnings of that amazing season of slowing down and colouring up. The temperatures reflect that slowing too – a little cooler in the mornings now, and darker of course.
Noticing these things is important to me. It’s a key part of my understanding of spirituality. I find a god-sense among the random non-sense of the world. The seasons are an anchorpoint, a never-ceasing cycle of change into which I have to find my way. Because whether I notice or not, the seasons are there. In Christchurch lots of people have taken to farewelling the godwits as a sign of the season. Later in the year we’ll watch for Matariki. I like this sense of spirituality. It makes sense. It doesn’t have the doctrinal stuff about it that church has built; it rings true in a deep way. God is in there for me.
So, today, I noticed again, it’s now autumn and there’s no going back to last summer. Or revisiting the things that either hapened or didn’t happen. Time to move on.