Monday 24 November 2014

Autumn Tears


Autumn:

Peaceful. Colourful. Serene. Melancholy

Spending a fair amount of time out in the (partial) wilderness of lakes around Hampshire has made me realise my love for Autumn increases with each passing year.




The earthy smells of freshly sprinkled rain, whose tender drops bounce off my chilled hands and onto discarded leaves, like some lost but cherished memories, scattered forever into the mud.

It's strange how good and bad memories both bring sadness. Sadness for the eternal trauma bad memories inflict on us, and sadness for the good memories we can't re-live and reclaim.

The gentle chill, easily made bearable and comfortable with appropriate clothing, gives the opportunity to observe first hand how nature, in it's cyclical, infinite and well-rehearsed routine, prepares to batten down the hatches for winter.

The hurried feeding of ducks, swans and all kind of fauna, as they prepare for a frugal winter and the scarcity of natural  food, reminds me of shoppers preparing for Christmas.





It is also a time of year when I miss most the loved ones who have gone, forever, from my life.

I don't know why autumn has such a melancholy effect on me, but it does. I guess it is because I feel the aging process of the year, reaching its finality, as a reflection of the relentless march forward of my own life, towards my eventual and personal demise.

And a song is on repeat-play in my head. A beautiful song by Justin Hayward, whose words are etched permanently in my mind.



The summer sun is fading as the year grows old...




Through autumn's gown we used to kick our way. You always loved this time of year
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now...because you're not here.




A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes, as if to hide a lonely tear...

:(









Friday 14 November 2014

Autumn Leaves...


...me somber, yet excited in anticipation for Christmas.

The lights, the shopping, the smells, the days off work, the music and socialising makes it my favourite holiday period. The further I move away from all things religious, the more I dread the possible eventual demise of this most precious pagan winter festival.

Jingle bells, Santa Claus caricatures plastered everywhere, mould wine and many other treats to look forward to. 

I love Christmas.







As for the virgin  birth, well...imagine nowadays young Mary coming home and telling her parents she's pregnant but...hasn't had sex!





She wouldn't be visited by three wise men either, but more likely the Social Services. And if she were unlucky enough to have been born into a religious fundamentalist culture in the Middle East (as she was according to myth) she'd get stoned without needing a visit from her pusher..

Had this whole sorry saga actually happened, can you imagine the rumours that would have swept through sleepy Nazareth! The evil whispers and nasty gossip!

"Hey Joseph, I hear your young spouse hath a bun in the oven madeth not with your ingredients"

And "what if the child is born black? What with Mary and thou being 100% Aryan and all..."

But I guess back then Joseph would have consulted with one of the many prophets doing the rounds in the Middle East at the time (and there were dozens) who would have probably encouraged the storage of hair samples of all three of them, in the then modern invention of clay jugs, for future DNA paternity tests.

I feel sorry for Joseph, and not just because we share the same name but because he didn't even get to sample the pleasures of having sex with Mary, yet had to help change nappies, night feeds and all the laborious duties of parenthood.

Today, a similar situation would raise a few eyebrows, yet so many believe that back in the unforgiving and ultra-strict dark ages that's exactly what happened! And Mary escaped unscathed.

Back then society must have been one of two things;

1) Extremely tolerant (no chance)

2) Incredibly gullible (no doubt)

Just like some backward societies across vast swaths of the the present-day world.

At least back in the biblical times people had no access to the Internet and illiteracy was the norm. 

What excuses are there today?

None that spring to mind.

:(