Someone told me that the red and gold of fall leaves is there all along. It is not that the vibrant colors suddenly arrive. Rather it is the exit of green that enables us to see them. 

 

This was news to me. I like green. It is the garment of spring and summer. There are benefits to its presence, for the tree itself and any hungry deer that happen by for lunch. 

 

But there comes a time when chlorophyll sloughs away, leaving the glory of autumn in its wake. Part of the magic is in being present to the transition. The subtlety beckons us closer, to a change that is both silent and wondrous.

 

Another friend often reminds me to stop thinking. Well, that is perhaps an unfair synopsis of a complex idea that he has spent the last few years trying to articulate to me. But he believes that when we step away from the trap of overthinking.... worrying, judging, comparing, blaming, and other variations of self-aggrandizement, there emerges something lovely that was there all along.

 

God's leading is camouflaged by such trappings, and only appears when our insistence on managing our own destinies slips away like the expired pigment from a maple in October. 

 

It turns out that when I surrender to trust in the Divine, events unfold as they need to. Which is something I can learn from a grove of aspens.