From Over the Hill: Song of Autumn by Peter Bloch-Hansen
As Fall lowers itself down over us, there is often a sense of melancholy, recognizing that ‘the lazy, hazy crazy days of summer’ are ending. I’ve never been particularly keen on pretzels and beer, and being Canadian, it’s always pop, never soda. But
Some try to ignore the Fall, acting, even as the leaves swirl underfoot, as if ‘summer will always be here’. I’ve even seen some venturing out in shorts and sandals as late as November! Others welcome the Fall – the bright colours, the crispness of the air, the snuggle of a scarf, the rich harvest, pumpkins and of course, fresh apple pie! Arguably a more sensible and healthier approach, an approach by which our attitude protects and defends our inner selves. Our sciences tell us why Fall comes, but we turn to mythology or religion to tell us what Autumn means. Because just knowing the science doesn’t really help us with that sense of melancholy and loss, a feeling as old mankind to judge by the writings of the ancients. I’ve always loved the Greek myth about how the god of the underworld stole Demeter, daughter of Ceres, who in grief and anger, stopped the green world from growing till Zeus forced a compromise that caused the seasons. Buried under this tale is the sense that the universe has an order higher than the laws of physics, an order whose cause and origin we can sense in our inner lives -- in the melancholy of Autumn as much as in the joyfulness of Spring, an order which we can feel, to which we can respond. Now, I’m not here preaching religion, but suggesting that there is comfort in seeing that we live on a world nestled somewhere in an ordered cosmos which is as much a part of us as we are of it. So, as we savour the apple pie and look forward to carving the pumpkins, we can be thankful that simply by our attitudes, we can live in tune with and bring into ourselves a vastness beyond imaging.
nostalgic songs aside, Autumn is a fascinating time. I draw a distinction between Fall and Autumn. Fall, naturally, is when the leaves turn and come floating or wind-driven down; when the sun moves south (like some Canadians); when the days shorten and the nights cool. Those things happen in Autumn certainly, but Autumn is something that happens purely inside us. This melancholy, provoked in many by Fall, for some, deepens with the fading daylight into depression, eventually even to seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Our inner lives pulse in rhythm with the seasons of the planet; there is nothing we can to change that. To protect our bodies, we can put on jackets, coats, scarves, all the rest, or flee from the cold to sunnier climes, but how do we protect our inner selves from this change that overcomes our planet each year?
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Page 12 Boomers and Beyond – Elgin • September 2024
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