Actual

Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy)

Today, September 22, 2024, is the actual day that begins Fall, aka Autumn. Below is what I read early this morning in Earth Prayers from around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for the Honoring the Earth, edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon.

O sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher,

for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment.

As I gaze upon your full-colored beauty,

I sense all about you

an at-homeness with your amber riches.

You are the season of retirement,

of full barns and harvested fields.

At the cycle of growth has ceased,

and the busy work of giving life

is now completed.

I sense in you no regrets:

you’ve lived a full life.

I live in a society that if ever-restless,

always eager for more mountains to climb,

seeing happiness through more and more possessions.

As a child of my culture,

I am seldom truly at peace with what I have.

Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received,

may I now that it’s enough,

that my striving can cease

in the abundance of God’s grace.

May I know the contentment

that allows the totality of my energies

to come to full flower.

May I know that like you I am rich beyond measure.

As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty,

let me also take delight

in the abundance of the simple things in life

which are the true source of joy.

With the golden glow of peaceful contentment

may I truly appreciate this autumn day.

EDWARD HAYS