Morning Mist Rising, Plymouth, New Hampshire; Thomas Cole, 1830

THE phases of deciduous trees correspond to phases of the mind. The embers of autumn are the embers of memory. A child walking through a pile of new-fallen leaves, the crumbling fires flaming and crackling as he steps, may have the strange sense that he is walking through his future memories, with the written pages of his life burning and smoldering at his feet.

The leaves are gold and scarlet. Inside the hearth of illuminated foliage, we momentarily glimpse our lives as a unity. What we were is what we are and what we will become. We remember what we have forgotten. We see in the fading sparks what we will forget again.

Please follow and like us: