You can feel it in your bones.

The moment the wind hits you…

You arch your back and breathe deep.

You stare into the cobalt sky and realize that the new season is on its way from the great North.

Though we, as a country, celebrate the New Year at the end of that Yuletide month, Fall brings upon me a feeling of new. The leaves are changing and scarves loop their way around our bare necks. I assume that most people understand the changing of colors as a sign that the once vibrant green-sleeved branches are losing life.

And, they are. But it’s so much more than that.

This season brings the Harvest. Grapes are picked, pressed and by the grace of skilled hands, eventually, gives us wine. I never grew up around vineyards, but I did grow up around pine trees. In fact, the smell of burning pine needles is one of the very few things that can bring me back in an instant.

The red embers burning and curling like a fiery beard upon the face of my memories.

This season brings contemplation on the last time the leaves fell…and where I was in life and what I’ve come to learn from it since. Maybe there’s a reason we all sit around a table and give thanks – maybe it’s in all of our bones.

I think looking at our lives in seasons is good. I think we should learn from the trees outside our windows. That is, to always be ready when things come and go and when the wind is too much for the last leaf standing.

What I’m trying to say is that we give thanks for the fruit.

We collect as roots dig down deep for the mighty Cold and remember how good they’ll be next time around. So know that when we see the leaves falling and the plants hiding, they are still alive. Perhaps they feel it all too. The way the Great Mystery leaves us all.

Thankful to dig our roots in for another season.