It is a crisp morning. Autumnal and well-received. My favorite weather. My favorite season. Holidays are in the air. It is time to sally forth. Meet the moment and immerse yourself in the fall weather. The Cubs play today. They are two games behind in a best-of-five game competition. It is win or go home. MJ is a Cubs fan. She consumes the games with joy. I glance toward the television as I am passing by. I visited Wrigley Field twice in the ’80s and thoroughly enjoyed both visits. The young men of summer have long retired, and some have died. Yet they and I were full of life in those halcyon days. MJ said we would walk to the ballpark. She noted that on the map, it was only about an inch between our hotel and Wrigley. Three miles later, we arrived. A Hare Krishna person offered me a book for free, and I took it; however, he then wanted $30. I gave the book back to him.

I watched the first episode of a streaming show regarding the attack on Israel on October 7th two years ago. It illustrated Palestinians helping a Jewish woman to safety. At the conclusion, the actress portraying the Jewish runner and the Palestinian man clasped hands in solidarity regarding what they had just experienced, where both feared for their lives. Then the image became the actual people holding hands and their reunion of joy with Jewish and Palestinian people united by the Terror that they both endured. The Jewish woman lived in the Kibbutz that was attacked, and the Palestinian man worked in the kitchen of the Kibbutz. They were united by their shared humanity.

We are all on this journey together. Fall is here, and hope surrounds us. Time to settle under the falling leaves and ponder how we might change as the seasons do. I love Autumn and winter clothing. Sweaters and jackets, flannel shirts and leather hats. Time for walks in the Woods and reflection on matters of the heart. We are here for a short time. You can not tell of our brevity by how we build bigger and better. The statues we erect to our time here. We gather more hay into our barns for fear of winter. We see the deprived, hungry, and cold. Rather than help them, we fear we are next.

Work demands much. Often it demands too much. Some lives are subsumed in their career. Work is good, but it is not life. Life is poetry and prose. Life is autumn in the Woods. Thoughts of life and change what comes next. A sense of place. The joy in another’s eyes. Dreams of the future. Fond memories of the past.