Summer’s End

Here in the northern hemisphere, it is the last day of summer. Tomorrow ushers in the season of autumn.

There is a first morning frost in the forecast, and for days now the air has been cooling, the flowers fading, and the leaves beginning to turn.

I spent the past weekend with friends at Pelican Lake RV Resort, where there were some very poignant signs of this time of transition and loss; this time of transformation.

I share this evening images of these signs of change, along with the words of Cliff Séruntine on the deeper significance – the magic and mystery – of this change.

September: Time of the darkening equinox, the balance between sun and shadow. Full of the magic of change – not always a comfortable magic. Its twilight empties the heart of its mortal dream. Yet, September is not a bleak month, but a time of transformation. There is no dream as fair as the host rushing “twixt night and day,” a symbol of the continuance of life in the Otherworld. This is the Celtic spiral of life – death and rebirth. This balance . . . it is the mystery of [this] time.

– Cliff Séruntine

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Pelican Lake (2021)
• Pelican Lake (2016)
• Late Summer Blooms
• Autumn Rose
• Photo of the Day – September 22, 2016
• Autumn: Season of Transformation and Surrender
• O Sacred Season of Autumn
• The Landscape Is a Mirror

Images: Michael J. Bayly and Angela Hanson Shores.