Fall begins at Lammas

My seminary (and sabbatical) professor Jeremy Taylor pointed out that it's a little strange to say a season begins with the equinox or the solstice. By the time it gets to winter solstice, it is well and truly winter. Fall is not about arriving anywhere, it is about transition. Fall is Winter and Summer trying to sort themselves out.

So I wasn't really paying attention when Lammas passed this August. (Lammas is the holiday that comes halfway between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox). But gradually the signs of fall have begun to emerge even though my desktop calendar says we have 2 weeks to go:

The children have returned to school, and on Sunday morning are twice as intense, and report being twice as tired.

My family and I just cannot seem to get up in the morning- that hazy morning light has my body convinced I need at least another hour.

I'm starting to stuff a sweater in my bag whenever I leave the house.

The peaches and nectarines are looking tired, and the produce guys are getting all excited about their pears.

For me this time of year is also the time of Burning Man. And though my friends and I camped on the side of a foggy sand dune this Labor Day weekend instead of in the blazing sun of the playa, I was struck as I stared in to the fire by how much I had to let go of, that I imagined burning to ashes in that fire. I think about the Jewish ritual of dropping bread into a stream each fall at the new year so that the bread might carry with it regrets, mistakes, omissions and hurts. Perhaps this is organically part of the early fall, like the waning sunlight. But how does the soul's calendar work, that even when I am miles from the desert I feel the need to burn? I am constantly amazed to remember I am part of cycles so much larger than my own life.