When I was young, Autumn was a magic season. The wild wonder of Summer was over. Long days of play gave way to shorter days chock full of school work. I did not mind. I loved the freedom of Summer, but Autumn held you accountable. You felt that you had become more adult somehow; more responsible.

I always marveled at the changing colors of the leaves. The pumpkin and corn ripening and being harvested. The nip in the air that I knew as Jack Frost. The migration of birds. The preparation for hibernation among reptiles and mammals. Autumn was hunting season when we provided for winter meat. We learned to be more disciplined in our movements and alert to what was happening around us.

While Summer had one notable public holiday, the Fourth of July, Autumn began with Labor Day in September. It moved quickly towards Halloween and Thanksgiving. Labor Day to remind us of what workers have done and are doing. Halloween reminding us of our long-term contract with the dead. Thanksgiving as a reminder of what it is to be an alien in want of life's goods and needing the support of others to obtain them.

Perhaps that is the quality of Autumn for me; a time to be alert to what was going on around me.

And, as Autumn changes to Winter, there is the Advent season. Here is a time for a more profound listening. It is a sort of listening that wakes you up in the dead of night because deep in the silence something is heard within the heart. The year will soon change; perhaps I too will change.

But, it begins with the gathering in of Autumn.