Autumnal Equinox

 

In three days summer becomes autumn as the Equinox arrives. It is not just an astronomical shift, it is a spiritual shift as well, as the psyche shifts from a world of heat to a preparation for winter. In Atlanta this year we go into a period of 70s/50s for the next ten days, a kind of refreshing, clean, healthfulness for reading on the porch and taking long walks to nearby parks. Lulwater comes to mind. How good for the mind and attitude is the change of seasons. 

Nonetheless, we live in a grim time all around. The death of beloved jurist Ruth Bader Ginsberg breaks my heart, She lived as productive and meaningful a life as anyone could hope for, A full life worthy of praise and celebration. In our grim world, the forces of evil will gloss over her in order to seize more power. 

We live on the edge of the abyss: dictatorship-- as democracy could come to an end in 6 weeks. Even if that is avoided, we still have a virulent disease that will kill hundreds of thousands more people in our country. We have more hurricanes, floods, and wildfires than ever before. Our demise is at hand; though most of us mindlessly repeat old habits. 

On the whole I find most people despicable. We are all so selfish and self-absorbed,  lacking any real sense of the plight of others, their suffering, the suffering of animals and species as they vanish from the Earth. We all seem to live in a dream fantasy, the good and the wicked. We Imagine a world that will not be, ignoring the horrible damage we have done, are doing yet. 

I am not a complete misanthrope. I love the artists of all kinds: painters, poets, musicians, dancers and other creative people who give us beauty and understanding of what is good in life. I love kind people and those dedicated to making the planet better, even if it is too late. I love my friends and my husband. But I have no irrational optimism for I think that is one of our greatest flaws and weaknesses. I am not a pessimist per se, but a realist. 

I shall leave you with a quote about our lives and our experience of time. It is a great insight into who we are. Enjoy.

--Jameson

Thus what we call tedium is rather an abnormal shortening of the time consequent upon monotony. Great spaces of time passed in unbroken uniformity tend to shrink together in a way to make the heart stop beating for fear; when one day is like all the others, then they are all like one; complete uniformity would make the longest day seem short, and as though it had stolen away from us unawares. Habituation is a falling asleep or fatiguing of the sense of time; which explains why young years pass slowly, while later life flings itself faster and faster upon its course. We are aware that the intercalation of periods of change and novelty is the only means by which we can refresh our sense of time, strengthen, retard, and rejuvenate it, and therewith renew our perception of life itself. Such is the purpose of our changes of air and scene, of all our sojourns at cures and bathing resorts; it is the secret of the healing power of change and incident. Our first days in a new place, time has a youthful, that is to say, a broad and sweeping, flow, persisting for some 6 or 8 days. Then, as one “gets used to place,” a gradual shrinkage makes itself felt. He who clings or, better expressed, wishes to cling to life, will shudder to see how the days grow light and lighter, how they scurry by like dead leaves, until the last week, of some four, perhaps, is uncannily fugitive and fleet. On the other hand, the quickening of the sense of time will flow out beyond the interval and reassert itself after the return to ordinary existence: the first days at home after the holiday will be lived with a broader flow, freshly and youthfully – but only the first few, for one adjusts oneself more quickly to the rule than to the exception; and if the sense of time be already weakened by age, or – and this is a sign of low vitality—it was never very well developed, one drowses back into the old life, and after 24 hours it is as though one had never been away, and the journey had been but a watch in the night.

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain