Pumpkin spice chai lattes, apple cider, salted caramel… horror films, occult literature, esoteric documentaries… graveyards, ghost stories, oracle readings… orange and red leaves, carved pumpkins, Halloween decor… hoodies, furry boots, flannel… humid and heavy air morphs into a crisp breeze…
Autumn is seriously my favorite time of year. Every season is beautiful (except spring, that’s the worst) but no season makes me happier than Fall. September means back-to-school (we never start school before Labor Day in NY, that’s just blasphemy). It’s quite difficult to enjoy Fall when you’re filled with a mixture of anxiety and dread about a new school year. There’s some excitement, especially during college days, but it’s just hard to enjoy nature when you’re being forced to throw your effort into the unnatural & manmade concept of school. You don’t notice the changing colors of the leaves until they’ve all fallen to the ground, because you are too occupied with buying the right supplies, adjusting to a major change in schedule, writing papers and memorizing things, etc. The mind is too busy in its own head to stop and look around. But now that I am a working lady who is currently untouchable to the back-to-school lifestyle, I feel like I can enjoy Fall so much more.
If winter represents death & rebirth, then autumn represents the process of dying. The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer, which means darkness is in the process of taking over. The celebration of Halloween reinforces the way that nature embraces darkness this time of year. What’s so scary about the dark? The light shields us, warms us, and shows us what we want to see. The darkness reveals everything that is hidden. When you hide and suppress your demons, you give them more power. You have to not only face them but befriend them and find ways to peacefully work with one another. You can’t kill them off, you can’t run away from them, and you can’t just pretend that they’re gone. Without darkness there would be no lightness, so they can either battle each other or they can complete each other in perfect harmony.
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