Lost

Thousands of bloggers across the Northern Hemisphere are pressing a cup of coffee to their breast as they record their seasonal reflections and I am stepping up to join their illustrious ranks. October, flame spout of color and summer's glorious end, electrifies the senses. Summer had its light times as well as its dark but we are transitioning now to something else. 

This is the time of year where man and beast alike root around the forest floor collecting their bounty and to go more than two weeks without being offered foraged mushrooms by a friend is highly irregular. In the Pacific Northwest, our unusually dry fall has come to a muddy end as we near Samhain. The blue, wind-whipped skies with jellyfish clouds slowly give way to a domineering grey, but the weather each day is still anyone's guess. The fierce weekend winds which blew the crisp brown leaves off the trees have died down to a gentle, persistent rain as I write this. Every weekend this month feels precious. I feel the need to witness this transition of seasons by being outside as much as possible - taking walks under the blue skies, having sweet roller blading dates with new and old flames and bathing myself in the colors of the woods. Fall is truly the most breathtaking show imaginable. 

Within each season we have the opportunity to reflect on the many moods and stages of our lives. Some friends have told me they feel the energy picking up in Fall and life gets busier after the laziness of summer. I feel that urgency insofar as I am in what I call my "friend cuffing season" where I am trying to lock in new friends and solidify my extracurriculars before the Big Dark, when people retreat to their burrows. Despite this urgency, I have always felt a grounding energy in the Fall centered around the home.

Fall has its transcendence: thoughts race across the mind like clouds across the moon as shadows grow longer and death draws nearer. Hecate, the Triple Formed goddess of crossroads and guardian of boundaries, watches over the spirit's passage. The veil between the world of the living and the dead thins as we near the astronomical midpoint between the autumn equinox and winter solstice (Samhain). In between spaces always hold spiritual significance as one thing transforms into another. This and Beltane, another midpoint that takes place in the summer, are the two spirit nights of the year, where the laws of time and space are suspended and we are tempted to wander out beyond the safety of the light to meet the spirits roaming the dark. I feel the change in energy in the wind. 

I spent last Saturday squelching through a muddy corn maze with some Seattle folks, pondering the joys of aimless wandering. I realized then that there are two types of people in the maze: those who want to know where they are in the world and those who are trying to get lost. 

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Guevara

The Sunday prior I drove around some woods at the gateway of the Olympic National Forest and watched the leaves' stunning show. In both the corn maze and the maze-like roads I drove through that day, it was profoundly relaxing to not care where I was going. Even when I saw a road or path leading out of the maze I opted to continue my wandering. At one point I fell behind my corn maze group and watched the wind whip through the corn stalks in a mesmerizing dance. The sound of a million stalks of corn swaying around me raised goosebumps on my arms. I felt like I was suspended in time watching some minute change occur. A moment later, a flock of Canadian geese flew overhead, making their tremendous journey southward: a powerful, innate response to these subtle shifts in nature.

Mazes have a spiritual significance in many traditions dating back thousands of years. To the Celts, mazes represented the soul's journey to the center of the underworld and its return to rebirth (both circles and mazes are significant in Celtic imagery, representing the continuous cycle of life, death and rebirth and the interconnectedness of the natural and spiritual world). Mazes are often built for meditation and prayer: to seek what you find. They are meant to simulate a pilgrimage towards a spiritual realization or symbolize life's path towards deeper meaning and fulfillment. I was surprised by how calm and focused I felt in these mazes. It felt like ASMR. Something clicked in my brain and I entered this flow state where I was able to actually focus on what was in front of me in a way that is often elusive when I am in front of a computer. 

Fall evokes a questioning of what is real and what is really important as we bump the edges of other worlds and reflect on summer's end. October may be coming to its dramatic close, but I am still deep in the maze.