Here’s a few lines from William Wordsworth to contemplate as Vermont’s most remarkable season gets underway.
“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; –
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.”
From “The World Is Too Much With Us.”
Exiting the office one day this week, I was thinking about the next thing that needed to be done, where I was going next, what calls needed to be made or returned, stories written, tomatoes managed, etc., etc., etc. The world was definitely too much with me.
It’s not far from the office to where I was parked and suddenly I stopped, realizing that I was surrounded by the amazing, unique, delicious smell of fallen leaves. I’d been stomping mindlessly through them, failing to notice what nature was serving up.
Likewise, I’d failed to notice the sky that was the mid-September shade of blue and how many of the sentinel trees in the shopping center and beyond, on the hill above/behind Lawson’s and rk Miles had begun to change.
My mistake. It was a perfect, glorious moment on a perfect, glorious day in my imperfect and not always glorious life. Kudos to those dead leaves for sending their scent to my nose as I crunched through them. I’m grateful for that.
It’s hard to be mindful all the time because it is. And yet, fall is so fleeting and finite and it’s such a gift as the days shorten and we head into the cold dark months. I’ll be trying hard in the coming weeks so keep my head up, my eyes open, my ears tuned to the crunch of the leaves and my nose engaged.
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