An Autumn galore

There is a sight that awakens me every misty morning. I push the shutters open as I wipe the sleeping weakness off my body. A chilly breeze dances in the curtains and sighs, permeating the stifled silence of my enchanted room. The shadows hang over every corner; fingers draw shapes and nightmares against the indigo walls.

Sometimes I sit back and wonder what mischievous imps are at work in this little realm; this little haven of my solitude. I can hear strange sounds, like witnesses of evil machinations. Shades prance by the electrical bulbs and the fluorescent glimmers. There is a presence I can perceive within these walls: does it come from the dark side of my heart?

I subdue to this tide of thoughts - it is a liturgical practice, a ceremony that I cannot avoid. I always felt the supernatural flow in my life like a strong twilight wind. And every morning, in front of my bed, around me, there is something at work.

A pale light filters through the creaking shutters. The spectrum of warm colours projects a beam of sweltering fever on my pale forehead. I see the rays gather around me as an enchanted drape of light. Nature seems to call me and evoke my spirituality. It’s almost as if an unearthly mother is calling me back to her womb, to join the atavism of my dreams.

I feel the pain ache and throb throughout my limb; the rampant nightmares have shattered the integrity of this strong architecture. The change of seasons has evoked the demons within me; the gnawing evil that pecks at my bleeding heart. All over this hammering carcass I feel the battlefield swarm with dreams and nightmares, despair and hope.

While I endure this everlasting conflict that brings much pain and little relief, I think. I think over what life brings us, what life bestows us with. We all receive different gifts and we all appreciate them in different ways. I was punished by the gift of foresight and analytical understanding. The human being sees autumn as a dying season, a mournful passage that paves the way to the frosty silence of the long winter. Yet that is not enough to describe the wonders that I can feel and separate from the melancholia that surrounds me.

Every morning the trees speak to me. They move and dance trying to catch my attention and narrate their revealing truths. They know I’ll be the only one who’ll listen to them, they know I can feel and perceive the depth of their fears.

I shudder at the thought of bearing a universal knowledge, an archetypal consciousness of things that were not to be revealed. Yet how can one refuse a mystical initiation to a unique mysterious cult?

I find interesting how the weariness of my body and the numbness of my muscles can bring upon a different view of the world. If I can truly converse with trees then why can I not perceive the mysticism of my room?

Little stamping feet crush the pavement in a remote corner. No movement confirms my suspicions and my anxiety grows. I wish I could possess that eye-ointment that old legends so often mention. Would I be able to recognize the features of dancing gnomes and faeries around me? Or would I be fantasizing and falling into a sheer well of illusions?

There are many doubts that evoke the ambiguity of my thoughts. I live a daily solstice, a changing season in my moods and certainties. Yet where does the beauty of autumn lie if not in change itself? What draws me so close to the beauty of this season if not its restlessness and its melancholic attachment to the past?

The trees murmur outside and creak, as if touched by the rheumatisms of many stationary years. They play archaic notes of songs that are no more, of visions of an Earth that will never be again. And I feel their melancholia vibrate on the winds of this chilly autumnal morning. Am I the only one to understand you and endure the same pain that has afflicted you ever since?

The sun itself, a pale flickering globe in the mists, can bring little confidence to those who dwell upon this Earth. That is why most souls consider this season as a decadent passage to death itself. They think little of autumn’s revelation and its poetic sadness. There are many elements to brighten this ostensible passive stillness that most men have come to identify Autumn with.

There is a warm comfort in the ever-changing foliages of the woods. While I stand against the cold walls I observe the this festival of tender colours. How can one find sadness among such beauty? Like ageing men in their dying years these trees evoke their interior beauty, that same splendour that shall never die and shall never be blemished over time. The chestnut wavers and crumbles, the maple is battered by the combing winds and the oak creaks with the filtering humidity. Branches fall and hit the rotting ground, echoing their passive distress through the misty woods.

I do find solace in the undying pride of these revered creatures. If only men could be the same, the world would be much different. Their endurance and their dignity can teach us a lesson. They stand against the aversion of the natural cycle by parading the festoons of their canopies. Every branch, as if defying its neighbour, bears a burden of beauty.