I’ve been trying to find a way to describe how I’ve been feeling in these last few weeks of autumn before we enter the long and brutal months of winter. I had started to feel a crushing monotony; life at its core was a sequence of learning, taking tests, going to class, rinse and repeat. Boring! Perhaps it’s my specific schedule this semester or perhaps it’s just the phases of regularity in college as I know them.
Autumn brings such aesthetic joy for me; it’s a one last and brief explosion of beauty and color. Have you noticed how there is that one morning when you wake up and it is excruciatingly and beautifully autumn outside? Burning red trees and grass blanketed with leaves: a truly majestic sight. However, for some reason, I feel more connected to the season of autumn this year than I ever have been before.
Image Credit: Divya Chandorkar
As I mentioned, the last few weeks carried the sentiment of stagnancy and I am personally very uncomfortable with a lack of dynamic or not-so-dynamic change. So I subconsciously made some changes: a new tattoo, new haircut, new style of clothing. I reinvigorated my favorite hobby and passion, something I don’t always make time for during the school year (learning languages). I put on a new dress I ordered and felt one with the leaves, one with the season. This dress reminded me of the Renaissance. Perhaps it was the color or perhaps it was the style, but something immediately clicked. Such a cycle of monotony had propelled me into embracing a sense of rebirth, MY Renaissance.
Image Credit: Divya Chandorkar
It seems to me that this “Renaissance” sentiment would explicitly relate to spring, but oh how I am enamored by all things implicit! Spring is rebirth in the most obvious sense and I won’t argue against it. Autumn, however, is the most dynamic and dramatic period of seasonal change, which compels me to move with it.
Image Credit: Divya Chandorkar
A quote from one of my favorite novels describes the connectedness of everything:
“I’d never understood how closely things are connected to one another. And it isn’t just the zodiac I’m talking about. We human beings are only a part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might never have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we’ve just played, it’s perfectly clear that we’re affected every day by forces over which we have no more control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. What are we to do? We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them”
— Memoirs of A Geisha
Image Credit: Divya Chandorkar
I value the Earth, her seasons, and how she speaks to me. And I wholeheartedly agree that everything is connected somehow, as precisely articulated in Memoirs of a Geisha. So if autumn is a time of change for the Earth, why not for you? Why fight the currents? Move with them!
Before I leave you to muse on about personal rebirth and flowers and growth, I’d like to impart some practicality beyond the stream of consciousness above. Let’s discuss how autumn comes before winter and how winter here is brutally long. Imagine a period of rebirth [however defined] before a long, difficult time. Your new version of yourself can face anything, from the cold to the monotonous longevity of the season to the upcoming finals. I urge you to embrace a seasonal rebirth, and to do it now! Maximize this season before winter arrives, so that you can be reborn and ready for the next cycle of change. It could be something as simple as changing your coffee order or something more dynamic such as a different haircut. What does this seasonal change inspire you to do? What changes have you engaged in without realizing? With realizing? Share your comments, share your rebirth. And then, on to the next.