Time and change

This coming weekend, time will change from Daylight Savings Time and back to Standard Time. No longer is 6 AM the time I wake; now it will be 5 AM, since, in the fall, the change is backwards on the clock. It has always struck me that this is such an arbitrary, artificial change.

However, this is the time of year that the earth starts making a change also. In the north, the leaves are changing colors and will soon drop to the ground. (Here in SC, that usually happens at the end of November.) Summer plants stop growing…cold weather plants start flourishing. Gardens and flower beds change. Gardeners start working their plots to prepare them for the coming winter, clearing away the old dead plants, getting ready for the earth to rest. Farmers and rural people start to finish up the harvest, knowing that winter is coming – a time of planning and reflection.

So much change. So little time. As nature is showing us to slow up and become more reflective, our society is gearing up to make a mad dash to the end of the year. Advertisers are pointing at Christmas and urging us to decorate, buy, celebrate. They ignore the intervening holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving) as they push us toward a more purchase oriented future.

As I grow more mature, I am finding that I value the lessons of nature and am getting a bit more resistive to the demands of society.  One thing at a time. One season, one holiday, one experience.

I do not need to live by the clock. I do not need to cram everything into one day or a particular day or a certain hour of the day. I can take my time. And, some of the inner work that I am achieving this year has been because I am taking my time. I am giving myself space. I am letting the process happen. I am looking forward to my time of reflection, to slowing down.

This weekend is the last in my planned conferences. It is the last in the go-go-going that this year has been so full of. I have put my garden to bed. I will finish preparing my yard for the slower growth of the fall and winter in the next week. It is time to move my actions into my home and my thoughts within myself as I take stock of this year. I still have goals I have not yet achieved. I still have things waiting for me to finish. I still have hopes and dreams waiting to mature into reality.

I am ready…to reflect, to plan, to rest, and to visit those hopes and dreams.