The Turning Within

September Serene by Jennifer Cavan

It happens in August sometime, it's very subtle but I can feel it like the way you feel a light breeze run across your skin, if you're too busy you might not notice it at all. I call it The Turning Within, and it's coincides with the very first moments of autumn. The nights are getting cooler already, the days shorter, the late summer wild flowers are in bloom and I can feel that shift happening inside of myself and I welcome it. The summer is a busy and wonderful time full of high energy and a lot of light but that level of being can't sustain itself forever and it ebbs into a queiter time, thankfully. Autumn is my favorite time of year, it's full of energy as well, riding in the golden mountains or the warmth of the desert, it's chilly nights and mornings camping, and warmer clothes, it's fires and soft, warm light. Somehow, I can feel this turning, this shift in my body, I look forward to it but don't think about it too much, it just happens. It seems early this year, perhaps because we've had a cool and wet summer, perhaps because I'm already making plans into September, but the shift has occured, summer is roaring quickly past and fall is quietly heading up the trail towards me.
My mind wanders to going away, as it usually does, to the desert, to Utah and Cedar Mesa. I want to be in the canyons, the solitude and quiet, to be away from the pace that is set in towns and cities by people rushing to meet their goals. To just walk quietly up a slot between red cliffs, listening and being aware of the life moving queitly forward around me as it has done for thousands of years. Every year this happens to me and it's a gift.
This weekend we're rolling down to Salida. I'm dropping off some more art work at my gallery there, camping and riding Monarch Crest. Craig needs to do some fishing, he needs some time, some time to go into his head and maybe just get out of his head while he does his fishing dance.
I want to let go, let go of the things that I think I need to be doing and just do the things I can be doing right now. To me, letting go means to be open to whatever happens and usually that opens up a whole universe of possibilities that need the fertile ground of openness to occur. The tighter I hold onto, it must be this or that way, usually beautiful experiences won't happen. So throw it up in the air and see what happens. I don't mind The Turning Within, slowing down the pace a bit mentally and soulfully, it's as natural as the seasons.