Circular

“I live in nature where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular… The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that…”

Elizabeth Gilbert, The Last American Man

Autumn, a season of release.

Nature specializes in letting things go with abandon. Fall arrives with a celebration of color, a striptease of leaves that spin and dance in the wind. Day by day, minute by minute, the brilliant Autumn sunlight wanes.

Autumn is drying grasses, withering stalks, empty husks, muted landscapes. It’s the snap-crackle-pop of acorns, pinecones, chestnuts, and shriveled seedpods underfoot.

Squirrels scurry and scamper as they lay up stores. Like all animals, they know what’s coming. There’s a scuffle as they race through the crisp brown needles of conifers littering the ground.  

Autumn, a cycle of regeneration.

Rain soaks the soil and discharges the rich, earthy scent of decay.

Death is integral to this season, it’s true. But Autumn’s cast-offs are not so much dead and gone as they are in transition. Fungi, nature’s faithful agents of change, unlock and recycle hidden nutrients in these lifeless forms through the ongoing process of decomposition. So too do bacteria, bugs, and beetles. Slugs, slime molds, millipedes, and earthworms inconspicuously break down and convert dead plants into forms that will be used by other organisms.

That musky, woodsy aroma in the air is the primal smell of transformation.

Autumn, a promise of renewal.

As darkness settles earlier and earlier on the land each evening, dropped seeds descend safely underground into blackness. The waiting begins. Over the course of time, spent life forms provide vital sustenance for new life forms.

By design, the busyness of squirrels will soon turn to rest. Healthy, living plants and trees will quietly go dormant.

We can take heart in the patience and wisdom of Nature’s never-ending cycle. Seeds will germinate, tender shoots will rise like the morning sun. And sap in the veins of sugar maples will flow again.

“There is no waste in nature. Everything decomposes and comes back as something else. So nature is the ultimate example of circular, regenerative design.”

Kate Raworth, TED Radio Hour