Connected While Apart
Leaves Again?

Dear Mayfield,
There is a joke I have heard more than once among amateur photographers. How many more pictures of sunsets do I really need?  Well If you live by big water or broad land, in a city as the light sinking toward the horizon dances off tall buildings of stone, steel, brick, and glass, in the desert whose very starkness glows, or in the mountains where the sun going down gets caught in striking patterns of light and sun — in any of those settings, the sum of future sunset pictures might well be without limit, especially with the convenience of a camera on your phone.  I find myself not only enchanted by pictures of sunrises and sunsets, but also by pictures of fall leaves.  Those leaves may be actively turning into bright colors or drying into interesting, muted, sculptural shapes.  They could still be on the tree or piled up beneath it.  At times they are radiant when they are caught from their underside as I look up toward the sun.

These particular fall leaves made me think of the story of Frederick by Leo Lionni.  Frederick is a field mouse with plenty of sisters, brothers, and friends, who busy themselves this time of year locating, carrying, and storing whatever food they can find to tuck in the old stone wall where they will winter together.  Meanwhile, Frederick is soaking up all sorts of stories, memories, and images from which he can weave tales to lift their spirits on particularly difficult days ahead, especially at the end of winter when their food stock may be depleted.  Colors are among the content he stores internally. All indications are that this year’s late fall and early winter will be especially challenging for us.  Like Frederick, pictures on my phone, moments of awe, beauty, presence, and gratitude that fed me when they happened are in a digital reservoir for me to tap whenever they will most be needed.

When I first went to work for hospice in 1994,  I began to court the company of deciduous trees in the fall.  They were the metaphoric wise ones to whom I turned for perspective and understanding to resource memorial service after memorial service when we planted trees to honor and remember those whose care we had been privileged to share.  The trees were icons of an annual rhythm of letting go into the winter waiting ahead. Leaves that had experienced life in the company of others similar to themselves on the same or neighboring branches now dropped, often gracefully, one by one, a free fall toward the ground.  They found themselves separated from known companions or even pressed down to the ground as piles of other leaves formed on top of them.  If loose on their own they might dry at the whim of still air or wind into a new, brittle shape.  Piled up, their form also changed as rich soil invited their participation in a breaking down to become nourishing sustenance for future seasons of growth.  With trees and leaves I seek bravery for the unknown.

Another picture of leaves, Martha?  Yes, and maybe not the last.  We can learn and thrive beside them from one season to the next.
Peace, Martha

Please get memorial names, and the relationship of the person(s) to you in my email by Thursday, October 29.  We want to remember them with care on Sunday, November 1.