August 29, 2010, journal entry, An Autumn Color Wheel in August

Six miles.

I am not sure what to think about the chilly temperatures of morning and the coming Fall that have had me wearing my long-sleeved cool-max Seattle Half-Marathon shirt with my running skirt for the past three days. I am not sure that I am done with Summer and the hot heat and the blue and the water and the splashing and the colorful sundresses I simply adore.

~

Huge sunflowers, crones in orange, yellow, and purple, bow their heads to the waning Summer and waxing Fall.

Birds fly in abundant flocks, rehearsing their migratory trip South, and swirl and swoop in ribbons stirred up by the wind, much like the harvested lupine that blows and swirls from my hand as I walk the labyrinth at the farm of a Goddess.

I am surprised at the sudden absence of red-winged blackbirds in Hazel’s Creek where velvety cattails slowly transition their landscape from marsh season to dryer land.

I see many lilting butterflies, all in white, like musical notes that have shed their color, a precursor to the leaves trees will shed in the coming months.

I know it is Autumn when I start filling my 5k running waist pack full of acorns that drop in droves from the oaks in Oak Grove where I counted its trees.

Still busy in their business, hundreds of them, bumblebees like sniffing puppies, scramble from flower to flower, and become the shooting blue, grey, yellow, and black marbles of my youngest son’s game. Bumblebees flit about and climb down the blooms of vibrantly colored roses and coneflowers, their petals like colorful marbles themselves. Despite the cooling temperatures, these bumblebees haven’t slowed down a bit as they gather nectar and pollen, mustard yellow sticking to their legs, for honey to last the Winter through.

~

So I wear my long-sleeved cool-max Seattle Half-Marathon shirt with my running skirt on this chilly morning, the running getting better and better each time out. I expect that I will soon be able to run the early-May Bloomsday course, though two seasons later than I planned because, although Autumn doesn’t technically start until later in September and hot days could revisit, I am convinced that Summer has gone. The Wheel of Seasons, ignoring our paper and BlackBerry calendars, has spun fast forward in Her own timing, disregarding how we quarter up the year.

~

Today shall be all about embracing change. I shall throw myself into Autumn. I shall wear a sundress in the golden yellow of vitality with butterflies and sparkle and my silver rising phoenix pendant, sunflower side up. I shall hang on to the hour hand…no, it’s too slow…instead, I shall hang on to the second hand’s arm of the Wheel’s clock. I shall take guidance from those bumblebees and peer deeply deep into flowers as though I am Georgia O’Keeffe. I will fill vases and vases and vases with acorns…those alluring amulets…and glue the caps back on their tops when they fall off, and I shall select only those that plop from trees, never plucking them from branches. I shall experience the senses of each Season. And today, I will take pictures and pictures and pictures through my beloved BlackBerry Viewfinder of yellow and black striped bees and transparent bees and blue bees and flowers flowers flowers so I can post on The Moth what shall be my most favorite and longest of my color wheels thus far.

An Autumn Color Wheel in August

















































































Nobody sees a flower really~
It is so small it takes time~
And to see takes time.
~Georgia O’Keeffe

GL, 8/29/2010. Prevail.