Looking for Balance

As November progresses, the brilliant colours of earlier weeks are now faded and on the ground. Bright hours have been replaced by days on end of lowering skies. It is dismal outside and I feel dismal inside. I struggle to find an emotional equilibrium, feeling just a moment away from the scales of my inner balance tipping. It doesn't seem to take much; a photo, a memory, a song or a word. 

In the spring we look forward with anticipation of light, shoots in the ground and buds on the trees, forgetting the cold and the dark. In the autumn I think we are more aware of the duality of the seasons. We are leaving a time of fullness and colour, light and plenty, to enter a time of death and cold and darkness. As I walk I am aware of the contrasts.

The trees now naked show the beauty of their form.

However the destruction by time, disease and weather is also revealed.

The floor of the wetland can now be seen through the dying reeds revealing turtle and muskrat paths, and white-throated sparrows feeding beneath the boardwalk.

It also reveals skeletons of trees lost to the wetland.

But other dead trees provide food and habitat and the opportunity for sightings such as this pileated woodpecker; exciting on a gloomy day.

Seasonal waterfowl are gone, but mallard duck remain and entertain.

Canada geese fly in formation preparing for migration, but also rest in unusual places like the roof of this factory by the canal.

Even the open canopy does not reveal a bright sky,

but below is exposed a glorious fall of bittersweet.

This extraordinary support system is revealed,

as well as the damage done by river and season.

The view at the dam is stark, yet beautiful; calm and serene, yet active and turbulent. A perfect duality.

The river manages to be both at the same time, but I can't seem to manage this. I feel a deep joy observing my grandson sleeping, and an equally deep sorrow as my brother succumbs to dementia. My heart is full to see my sons happy with the wonderful daughters they have brought into my life, but I feel an equal terror for their future when I watch the news. An eternal see-saw of emotion. The Japanese have a more balanced view and the phrase for this is, Mono no aware. It is an eighteenth century philosophy which accepts beauty in the awareness of the transience of things, but having a gentle kind of sadness at their passing. I am not there yet.

I read an interesting post on Facebook about having an anchor spot. What they described was a place in nature somewhere, where you went daily and just spent time being quiet. I realized that I had established several places like this already. While a slightly broader interpretation of the post, one anchor spot I have is my porch which is surrounded by the habitat that I have created there. I sit and watch the birds and animals and plants and it is peaceful. The path is another spot. While the locations may vary, I focus entirely on my environment and take in its details, and breathe. I also have an indoor spot, the couch. This may sound odd, but this elderly couch was my mom's, and it is comforting to sit on it. From there I can watch my yard and its inhabitants through the window. There is also in this room, a beautiful side table that was my grandma's and a loveseat that I made using chairs that were my great grandmother's. 

I guess it is a place of the present and the past, as well as warmth and safety. I realized too, that I have anchor moments;  like when I lay my head against the heart of one of my sons, when I hear my husband's voice, when my daughter holds my grandson or when another daughter gives me a hug. Anchor points; moments, places and people, where I can recover balance, even if it is short-lived, it is long enough to take a breath.