Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

I have to agree with George Eliot, the author of my title. While the rain has moved in for a few days, that just confirms, along with the cool, bright days of last week, that the world is turning round, an Equinox is coming and soon it will be autumn, my favorite season of all. It is a season of contrasts because nature is coming to rest, the world still looks like summer, but the cooler temperatures and start of school bring energy and newness. Even the fresh angle of the light seems to make things look different. A walk through one of the many woods near my home during the coming weeks of Indian Summer, with the sky a little bluer and the humidity a little lower and a few trees here and there beginning to deck themselves out in their fall colors is a looked-forward to event. Because the weather here is so benign for the most part, we'll have vestiges of summer all the way through the end of October. Then, from the last part of that month till Christmas, we get some weeks of true autumn, with the wind and tumult and wild skies, then by January, the world is really asleep and the rain, cold and occasional snow move in. I love the movement of the seasons. Every change seems just right, my body craving it just as it comes. If I had to pick one season here that I don't love quite as much as the others, it would be winter, because it is always an indecisive winter. Our other seasons are as springy, summery and autumnal as they can possibly be, but winter is a mystery. Sometimes it is merely cold and dark and damp, like an obnoxious autumn that has overstayed its welcome, and without the lovliness of snow to make up for it.Sometimes it is mild and wet, like a sad, early spring that has arrived to the party before the decorations have been put up. Either way, it is not pretty or even always that cozy. It just doesn't know. Which, I suppose, makes the occasional winter storm all the more exciting and the eventual coming of spring that much nicer, so even winter has its place in the cycle. But until I have to deal with winter, I have many, many weeks of glorious fall, in all her many different forms. Here is another quote I found that makes me happy:

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz

I really like that imagery.