Autumn moods and moments
When light and dark, fullness and emptiness, limbo and clarity converge...
Late afternoon light
We were out on our tandem bicycle in the late afternoon, with the sun lowering itself on the horizon and casting a certain kind of light that transported me elsewhere—to memories of when a day is full and it’s time to go home.
These are memories that do not stretch to childhood, in fact, but only to the last decade or so. It is the autumn of nowadays, the one whose sunbeams in late afternoon extend out their hand to lead me to the elsewhere of another moment.
The feeling in my lungs when I have been outside all day breathing in the crisp air exchanged between me and the trees, me and the clouds, me and the sun. The feeling in my heart when I have filled the day with expanse and adventure, and now going home means savoring the joy, and relishing comfort and food.
Diwali
It was in this late afternoon light that I wanted to film at my friend Sush’s home for a new video we were working on. She had been invited to create a bookmaking activity as part of the National Museum of Asian Arts Diwali Celebration and asked me if I wanted to make an accompanying video for it. I said yes without thinking too much about it. As time passed, though, I struggled to start—not inspired and somewhat resistant—but filming in that autumn afternoon light seemed to nudge me.
Sush brought out various objects from her cabinet and arranged them on her living room table to catch that light and began explaining the significance of this and that, or a brief story connected to it, which made the objects come alive, out of the dark cabinet and into the light.
Lakshmi, one of the Hindu goddesses, is especially worshipped during Diwali, the Festival of Lights. She possesses divine wisdom that creates abundance for her devotees. Sush’s storybook contains 12 stories of the various ways Lakshmi is celebrated and represented, connected with her own stories involving ideas, rituals, and people.
One of the stories is how Lakshmi is shown either holding the lotus flower or standing or sitting on a lotus flower. Kamala is Sanskrit for lotus, too, and when represented as a goddess, “She reveals the lotus to us—rooted in mud, growing on a tall stem, and reaching for the sun—teaching us to go from darkness to light, ignorance to knowledge,” Sush explains.
Earlier Sush had asked me, “What is Lakshmi trying to show you?” I can answer that now. The mud is thick and deep, but the stem is strong, and the glimmer of light from the sun is always in sight. And there are many, many lotuses that will emerge. It’s just taking a while longer.
So here’s the video I made!
This is how crazy excited I was that my video was shown at a Smithsonian museum!
And the joy of teaching so many different people how to make the handmade storybook.
You can read more and see more photos of Sush’s book project here: Abundance is Bright: Celebrating Goddess Lakshmi & Diwali.
Fall Festival
My neighbor texted me, inviting me to her kid’s upcoming Fall Festival at his school. “I remember you telling me you always wanted to be a Waldorf kid, and here’s your chance.” I laughed because it was true and because she remembered. I would have thrived at a Waldorf School where imaginative play, engagement with nature, and arts and academics are integrated.
And so I went without hesitation. I sat in a little chair at a little table with other little kids and their parents. In one room, I made a candle holder. In another room, I made a felt gnome. There was something so satisfying in the simple craft activities of natural, earthy materials, something oddly familiar, too, as if glimpsing a sense of my Northern European heritage, however distant.
I put out a chrysanthemum plant, gourds, and a few pumpkins on our front steps. Mainly because all my neighbors had decorated their homes with something, and I didn’t want to appear grouchy. The gourds look grouchy. Two small pumpkins were chewed and carried away by squirrels.
The mum died in a week.
Halloween
I hate Halloween. There. I said it. It’s a commercialized spectacle of candy, costumes, and decorations that seem pointless. It’s been morphed into something unrecognizable from its origins, and the meaning of it all feels missing. But then, that’s how culture changes and mixes, and sometimes, the spirit of a thing is long gone through the centuries, and another spirit of a thing emerges with the times. I’m just not into the current rendition, I guess.
In my neighborhood, Halloween is a big deal—parades, best-decorated house contests, and handing out candy for the little kids starting at 5pm and ending with the bigger kids at 8pm. I’m grouchy. I grit my teeth, say how cute or awesome their costume is, and then pass the bowl of sickly, syrupy, sweet candy to John, who takes over the later shift with delight. It’s a time for him to chat with the neighbors.
Samhain
I’m rereading a book called “Wintering” by English author Katherine May in an attempt to understand this season of falling light and emerging dark. She touches upon the Gaelic festival of Samhain, that liminal moment in the calendar halfway between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice.
“Samhain, marking the arrival of the ‘dark half’ of the year… is considered to be a moment when the veil between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest… a way of marking that ambiguous moment when you didn’t know who you were about to become, or what the future would hold. It was a celebration of limbo.”
The leaves have turned their colors—spice reds, amber oranges, and honey yellows. Many have fallen to the ground, turning their edges still further to wood browns and sage greys. Plants have withered and shriveled, returning to the earth.
And yet the sky. It has been a crisp azure blue for days, the sunshine overly bright, and the temperature way too warm for November. It feels like two seasons colliding, the thin veil breached and disorienting. It’s less limbo, and more knowing now.
This is fall,
LouLou
