An Inspired Autumn
In the bottom field the bales are all stacked in blocks. Their silhouettes looming against the morning sky of peaches and reds and orange. That there is summer all packed away. It’s warmth, it’s sun, it’s scent all folded into neat rectangles so that the next season can begin its shift.
Autumn has been slowly seeping in for a while now.
She passed the hedgerows and left them adorned with little gems; stormy coloured sloes, ruby red hips and haws and those blackberries that stain our fingertips indigo. The birds began to sing again after their summer silence and the mornings are laced with a chill. But Autumn has arrived fully now and soon the skeins of geese will begin to pass over head and the creatures of the summer will take their leave; the swifts have already gone, the swallows and the martins won’t be far behind them. Before you know it, the thick mists will roll in as the stag’s bellows roar through forests of changing leaves.
Autumn is the season that inspires.
All seasons inspire but for some reason Autumn is more prominent than most. Keats, Clare, Shakespeare all stake their claims in the turning of the season, but what is it that truly inspires us about this time of year?
Is it the season itself, or is it the shift that sparks that creative streak?
There are so many changes in Autumn; temperature, the light, the flora and fauna we see and the sounds we hear. This is the season that when we were younger, we started our new academic year, we went back to school to a new year group, to new things to learn and to blank pages in our exercise book.
A clean slate.
Perhaps that’s what Autumn is for us? It’s a clean slate and a new beginning. That freshness in the air and the redness of berries that dangle on the branches is just a sign for us to start again. To start a new. Not to forget what we have learnt from the year that has passed so far, but to build on it and learn something new in the coming days ahead.
Maybe it’s not that.
Maybe it is just that the palette of Autumn is particularly pleasing, that with those blue skies and red hips we are refreshed. That whilst it is a joy to watch the dips and dives of swallows as they flit through dusty farmyards, it is just as satisfying to witness the migratory movements of the geese that fill those big skies with wavering arrows. As much as we’ve enjoyed the summer sun on our skin I know there will be a sense of comfort that comes from swapping the sun for soft fabric, for snuggling down into scarves or jumpers whilst sipping hot coffee.
After the heat of summer, we can slip into the coolness of Autumn, when the days are still relatively warm, before the harshness of Winter has set. Perhaps it is the comfort of Autumn that gifts people this creative streak.
Something in me suspects though, that it is solely the splendor of the season which is reason enough to want to share. Its gentle beauty has so much to offer in such an accessible way that it is hard to not go and explore, it’s impossible to not take photos of the seasons offerings, or try to capture the colours with art, it is hard not to attempt to recreate it with words. Each year there is so much beauty that we want to pluck it for ourselves like those ripe blackberries we feast on as stroll down country lanes.
Those stacks of summer piled high in the bottom field all drenched in gold are my cue to think on the things that are to come. To wander amongst Autumns treasures and choose which ones I will pick as my favourite this year, which ones I will try and capture in my own way.
