I have had an autumn day.

I have gathered windfall apples and have them stewed, waiting to be turned into cinnamon and apple pies.

I have cut back hedges and had a mid-afternoon bonfire; eaten late, soft blackberries as I walked the dogs along the low-lit, golden lanes before yoga on the patio with the dogs helping.

I have sat alone by the river at the bottom of the garden, catching the neon flash of the kingfisher slicing across the late afternoon sun, hearing the splat and splosh of the near-glimpsed silver fishes catching flies in the lowered eddies. I have taken time to sit and watch the circles they leave expand to the red and pink and umber leaves floating by the bank.

I am, even now, writing on the garden bench, watching the clear blue sky outlining the gilded leaves.

It has been heavenly. Nowhere in particular to go, nothing in particular to do, no one in particular to see, nothing very much to say. The silence has been so welcome, so soft after the filled sounds of the week.

This is nature’s eternal gift to me, the way she stills my mind and slows my business. She holds my energy, allowing me to cut and plant, to dig and mow. She feeds my eyes with multitudinous forms, reminding me that perfection is found in difference, not in conformity or uniformity. She bathes my ears in sounds so subtle that the brash noises of the world fade away.

The newly cut lavender hangs in my yoga hut, fragrancing the mats and reminding me of summer. The blackberries, still so sweet, remind me of childhood sticky fingers, sticky still after all these years. The damp grass, the downy moss, the tart stings of nettles fighting to stay out of the fire, all of nature’s reminder that life is here and now, not then and there.

May I always find my way back to her, when life gets too busy, too full of musts and have-tos and rush and care. It is not she who leaves me; it is I who leaves her.

Nature, please keep tugging on me, drawing me outside, tangling my hair, watering my eyes, stroking my skin until I find my way home to you, the place where I feel most at home, free of judgement, free of time, free to just be me.

Thank you.