One of the more interesting observations I have noticed when I write about the changing seasons and the turning of the year is how many people say that they can actually physically and inwardly 'feel' the change within themselves.
This is actually something I have noticed in myself over the years but have always put down to being pushed along by commercialism and absorbing all of the marketing and future-focus of the world we live in today. In this way, I am being prompted to never live in the moment and instead live in a restless and detached state which separates me from nature and a more conscious universal connection. And, as a result, I end up far ahead of actual time in my own head.
But, having read so many other testimonies, I wonder if we are playing down our senses and ability to connect with the voice of the earth and cyclical changes. When you think about it, they are much more inherent and imbedded within us than any materialist calendar.
We know, for example, that plants and trees send out chemicals and scents in order to communicate with each other but it is less known that they also use these signals to draw or repel non-flora organisms which may help or hinder their existence.
On a wider scale, these subliminal prompts map out the life-spans and changing patterns of nature itself while drifting on the currents of the wind. So, it’s probably not far-fetched at all to deduce that we, ourselves, are called to notice the turning year as a result of this. Another factor to consider is how scent, memory, and emotion are connected.
We might wander into a woods and the smell of pine will remind us of previous winters or autumns. We might then remember who we once were and no longer are, or who we had around us but are no longer here.
The poignancy and emotion of such experiences entwine us more tightly within the web of nature, but with our sense of time wrapped around us, as if to offer consolation. In this way, nature, true uncompromised nature, literally is a doorway into the eternal and timeless realm of our own inner lives.
In a similar way, returning to a familiar place or landscape can allow these entrances to appear again after many years. They were always there, of course, but somehow, in the turmoil and distraction of life we had forgotten.
Until returning again in our minds, when they appear, seeming to shimmer from within our memory like candles or even beacons. Putting these concepts into worlds is hard, though. And, perhaps, that's because they are not meant to be written down and instead felt or lived.
There is a line in Hannah Kent's novel, Burial Rites, which might explain what I mean - "She invented her own language to say what everyone else could only feel."
Perhaps, then, believing ourselves when it comes to these deep-felt connections might also change our relationship with both nature and time, too. (C.) David Halpin.
Art: Jesús Inglés, ‘The Awakening of the True Homo Sapiens’.