The Romance of Autumn
This world is longing to love us. Will you let it?
Our culture loves to sell us the idea that we can only experience romance if we are in a romantic relationship. It tells us that no one can love us more deeply than a romantic partner and that romance can only be experienced in the most traditional ways: love notes, candlelit dinners, shoulder massages…
Though I have often yearned for this type of romance when I don’t have a partner, I’ve also been extremely blessed to have recognized and appreciated the romance of the world around me since I was a little girl.
I felt enraptured by warm blankets, cuddles with my mother, and the way steam billowed out of a tea cup. I felt like swooning when the grass tickled my feet, when I watched two birds singing back and forth, when the stars shone in the sky. And most of all, I felt absolutely ravished by the sight of yellow and red leaves skittering across the street in autumn. Nothing was so romantic to me as the natural world at that time of year.
Even as an adult, I can feel it. The romance is so heightened, it thrills me.
I love the way the wind becomes enraptured with the trees, unable to keep itself from touching and tickling and disheveling every last leaf.
I love the way the thick clouds on a stormy night gently embrace the moon, letting just enough gauzy light through that the whole sky looks like silk.
I love the way the leaves blush, and the flowers of summer begin to bend longingly toward the earth, in surrender.
The spirits watch, almost jealously, and try to make contact. I suspect they miss the exquisite beauty of this time of year. And we see, hear, and feel them, hovering as closely as they are. We might feel a little haunted, a little sad, a little incomplete…but rapturously so, like that quiet moment on a second or third date when you both know you’re about to kiss.
I desire everything at this time of year. Dark, salted chocolate filled with caramel. Sitting by the fire under a fuzzy blanket. The crisp breeze on my face as I walk through the woods.
I have been known to literally exhaust myself with feelings of longing. But I love this feeling. I love the way desire fires up my creativity. And seeing nature mirror this hunger within me drives me wild.
I use my desire as a reminder that I deserve to be caressed by the wind just like the leaves do. I deserve the support and embrace of the universe, the same way the moon deserves the support and embrace of the clouds. And I give myself permission to bend longingly toward what I want, the way the flowers of summer bend toward the earth. I surrender to it, even if it means something in me has to die.
I let the world love me — because it can and because it wants to. Because my happiness is not dependent upon having a partner.
I am already loved by the yipping coyotes, the bright blue sky, the majestic mountains. I am already loved by the One who made them.
I am already loved by each heaving release of brightly painted leaves, by the satiny frost that covers the ground in the mornings, by the melody made when wind and tree sing a duet. I am already loved by the One who orchestrated this.
The world feels drunk with longing at this time of year, both relieved and grieving to let go of the fecund swell of summer. As winter approaches, everything is reaching out to us. Longing to connect. Longing to come together before we are all called to go deeply inward, into a cold and snowy underworld.
I walk outside in the woods, just before sunset, to watch the last streaks of golden light before the purple and gray skies of winter descend. I stop and listen when the wind blows and plays its song for me. I wrap myself in a blanket and sip my Earl Grey tea while watching the birds gather winter supplies from my dying garden.
Everything is so beautiful. Everything loves us and wants to be loved by us. We are being wooed every single day.
Do you feel it?
© Yael Wolfe 2019
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