As I drive through the hills looking at the array of oranges, yellows, reds and browns, I feel so alive. I imagine God painting the trees as a gift to us before the stark cold of winter. The vibrancy of the colors is pure energy to my soul, and I am so grateful for another day on Planet Earth. My heart literally feels like it will burst in wonder. And then the voice starts in my head. "It's going to be winter soon. I hate the cold. I wonder how many times I will get stuck in the snow. Did I get the furnace checked? I wonder why I haven't got a snow plowing contract yet. I really wish I could go south. I can feel the grey already. I really hate winter. I am too damn old for this."
And it occurs to me that autumn epitomizes Live and Rebel for me. When I embrace the colors, I am living. When I am rebelling about the future winter, I am not.
My quest is to enjoy the colors and find beauty in the new snow.
Carl Sandburg said it best in his poem, Autumn Movement.
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.