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Quote by Janet Rebhan

“I searched among her crayons for a color that represented autumn and pulled out an orange-toned crayon, never used. It read “Bittersweet,” and I wondered why that particular name. Autumn was my favorite time of year… I was always ready for the change. I guess some people didn’t see it that way. Some people wanted to cling to summer... I loved both seasons, but I thought no one would ever call spring bittersweet, even though it was just another change, another new cycle, an end to one season and a beginning for another in an endless, never-ending spiral.”

Quote by Janet Rebhan

Book:Finding Tranquility Base
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Finding Tranquility Base

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Janet Rebhan

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“There is not enough night left for us. We have lost our true instincts for darkness, it’s invitation to spend some time in the proximity of our dreams. Our personal winters are so often accompanied by insomnia: perhaps we’re drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence, without really knowing what we’re seeking. Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort. Sleep is not a dead space, but a doorway to a different kind of consciousness – one that is reflective and restorative, full of tangential thought and unexpected insights. In winter, we are invited into a particular mode of sleep: not a regimented eight hours, but a slow ambulatory process in which waking thoughts merge with dreams, and space is made in the blackest hours to repair the fragmented narratives of our days. Yet we are pushing away this innate skill we have for digesting the difficult parts of life.”

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Book:Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
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“The autumn was a happy time. The crops around the countryside were good, and over at the Forks Falls market the price of tobacco held firm that year. After the long hot summer the first cool days had a clean bright sweetness. Goldenrod grew along the dusty roads, and the sugar cane was ripe and purple. The bus came each day from Cheehaw to carry a few of the younger children to the consolidated school to get an education. Boys hunted foxes in the pinewoods, winter quilts were aired out on the wash lines, and sweet potatoes bedded in the ground with straw against the colder months to come. In the evening, delicate shreds of smoke rose from the chimneys, and the moon was round and orange in the autumn sky. There is no stillness like the quiet of the first cold nights in the fall. Sometimes, late in the night when there was no wind, there could be heard in the town the thin wild whistle of the train that goes through Society City on its way far off to the North.”

Rural LifeChange Of SeasonsAutum
Book:The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The Member of the Wedding.
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“The month of August was upon them already. Where did the time go? The leaves were turning that special red—not a bright red or burgundy, an in-between red-and-orange. Other leaves were turning a beautiful golden shade. There was a splash of yellow leaves threading through the branches. Different variations of green leaves remained. The array of colour was breathtaking. Maple trees do not grow in England. What a pity, it is such a beautiful tree.”

NatureChange Of SeasonsFall Colors
Book:The Unknown
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“Even as the leaves are falling, the buds of next year’s crop are already in place, waiting to erupt again in spring. Most trees produce their buds in high summer, and the autumn leaf fall reveals them, neat and expectant, protected from the cold by thick scales. We rarely notice them because we think we’re seeing the skeleton of the tree, a dead thing until the sun returns./ The tree is waiting. It has everything ready. It’s fallen leaves are mulching the forest floor, and its roots are drawing up the extra winter moisture, providing a firm anchor against seasonal storms. Its ripe cones and nuts are providing essential food in this scarce time for mice and squirrels, and its bark is hosting hibernating insects and providing a source of nourishment for hungry deer. It is far from dead. It is in fact the life and soul of the wood. It’s just getting on with it quietly. It will not burst into life in the spring. It will just put on a new coat and face the world again.”

TreesChange Of Seasons
Book:Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
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“Unlike those terrible thrashing summer nights when the room is always too close to allow that final descent into oblivion, the cool winter nights afford me deep sleep and long, magical dreams. When I wake in the night, the dark seems more profound and velvety that usual, almost infinite. Winter is a season that invites me to rest well and feel restored, when I am allowed to retreat and be quietly separate.”

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Book:Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
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“In At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, the historian A. Roger Ekirch asserts that before the Industrial Revolution, it was normal to divide the night into two periods of sleep: the “first sleep”, or “dead sleep”, lasting from the evening until the early hours of the morning; and the “second” or “morning” sleep, which took the slumber safely to daybreak. In between, there was an hour or more of wakefulness known as the “watch”, in which “Families rose to urinate, smoke tobacco, and even visit close neighbors. Many others made love, prayed, and ... reflected on their dreams, a significant source of solace and self-awareness.” In the intimacy of the darkness, families and lovers could hold deep, rich, wandering conversations that had no place in the busy daytime. This was a function of the times in which the night really was dark, when the poor would go to sleep early to save the price of candles, and even the rich would have the choice of struggling on with their occupation in limited light or surrendering to sleep. Outside the house, the streets were usually unlit, so the only navigable space was home. This was so ordinary, and perhaps also so private moment in the day, that little was written about it. Ekirch picks up a range of passing references to the first and second sleeps in diaries, letters, and literature, but this ancient practice is nearly invisible to the contemporary eye.”

HistoryChange Of SeasonsDays Of OldWinter Darkness
Book:Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
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“And so, Love was born. He started to wander the world, and one day met the Sea. The Sea was enchanted, and gave him his tenacity. He met the Universe, who gave him his mysteries. Then he met Time, who gave him eternity. And finally, he met Death. Death was fearsome, greater than the Sea, the Universe, and Time. He prepared to face him, but he gave him a light. 'What's this?' Love asked. 'It's hope,' Death replied. 'So I can see you from afar, and will always know you're on your way.”

LoveDeathHope
Book:The Tearsmith
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“Elysian Way by Stewart Stafford An eviction deadline decree, A woodpecker broadcast, Winter, the incoming actor, About to enter a clean stage. The powder blue sky framed, Fall's aurum, russet and ochre, Dripping opalescent raindrops, A red wedding's spangled confetti. Leaves shushed and shimmered, In moving vertical waves of surf, Trees shrugged slowly to begin, The organic haircut of the ages. Leaves plunged, spun and floated, Fallen comrades littered the grass, Half-assed, surprise resurrections, As swirling spectral mini vortexes. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved”

FallTreeAutumnTreesAutumn LeavesFalling LeavesChange Of SeasonsAutumn PoemsAutumn PoetryFall Poem
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“She lives, but is not lively; awaiting the change of the seasons. A summer child, the old lady said. Summer children are filled with light. But my child will be born in March. A windswept, change-of-the-seasons child; sunny one day, in darkness the next. I feel that in her; that fugitive gleam, like sunlight on the ocean. And in my dreams I see her; always at five or six years old. Her hair is a tumbled candyfloss cloud. Her name comes in endless variants of my mother's name, Jeanne: Anne, Annette, Jeanette, Johanne, Jolène, Annie--- Anouk.”

DaughterChange Of SeasonsAnouk Rocher
Book:Vianne
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