Fall is my favorite time of year. Perhaps it is because I was born on September 24, barely a Libra on the horoscope spectrum. All I know is these months of golden leaves, drying grass, rutting elk and deer, and the lower arc of the sun in the sky are a season of peace for me.

The opposite is true of May. That month is a bitch, with her unsettled weather, multiple opportunities for wrecks, chaos, and turmoil. Though most of the time it is my own lack of focus that has caused it, I have been bucked off, stampeded with, thrown, and just had the thunder thrown at me from horses more often in May than any other time of the year. This past year, it wasn’t a horse that punched me in the gut, but it was still in May.

Yes, fall is my time. There is the work of stowing the summer camp, laying in the firewood, filling the freezer, and around that, a much-needed vacation to shake off the intensity of the short months of summer, when we who live and work and survive in Wyoming have to “make hay while the sun shines” as the phrase goes. The work of the fall gets me out into that golden realm, to sniff the air and find the scents of the season, and I am stimulated with hiking along the fenceline to repair the broken places. There is a little sense of urgency, knowing that the snow and cold will eventually arrive, but the sunny days slow me down and set me up to rest, and heal.

As the days grow shorter and head towards the winter solstice, I will be preparing for the next season, working out, building strength, surviving the colder nights, fixing the broken stuff, building my own fire to warm this home, and asking the universe to provide what I need for the future. My daughters say to me, “Mom, it’s not just about surviving, it’s about thriving”. They are wise young women and I take that to heart. She will provide, I have no doubt about that.

This passage from the Bible has the “words to live by” I think, when I consider the seasons:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 American Standard Version (ASV)
3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every ^[a]purpose under heaven: ² a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; ³ a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; ⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; ⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; ⁷ a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; ⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Peace to each of us, every season.