Everyday Canvas

October Thoughts

Prompt: "October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception." Oliver Wendell Holmes
Autumn is beautiful. What are your thoughts on this?

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When people talk of autumn, I automatically think of October because the best leaf colors can be seen around mid-October in New England. When we lived in Long Island, we always took a drive toward upstate, and when we could take time off, to New Hampshire somewhere just to watch the beauty of it all. Unfortunately, Autumn is also the time for the ragweed and other weeds to do their numbers on people like me with allergies and asthma. During the earlier years before I got asthma, we did enjoy our drives greatly, though.

October is a month with many other attributes, other than weed allergies and leaves. With two astrological signs, Libra and Scorpio, crisscrossing the month, the birthstone opal, gemstone Jaspar, the flower calendula, and its harvest moon, October also means raking those fallen leaves, which is a chore especially if you live in one of the New England states and you have a large garden of tall trees. The end of the month signals pumpkins and Halloween, first frost, planting of the spring bulbs, and the chimneys blowing smoke from the fireplaces.

October is also the apple time in New England. I remember the apple farm in Northport, LI, where we used to frequent for apples and cider, in addition to the seven apple trees we had in our backyard. Apples are considered to be the fruit of the gods in Celtic lore, and the apple tree has many associations with magical creatures such as unicorns that live under them. My earthling eyes, however, never beheld any such creature under our trees. Yet, I have seen many and carved myself a few jack-o-lanterns of the Irish lore, especially before Halloween.

In India, the homes welcome Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity, with the orange glow from certain earthen lamps. Maybe those magical creatures wanted to see such a lamp in my window. Maybe they needed me to play that Van Morrison song. Whatever they needed, I think I must have missed, and they didn't appear when I was around.

'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush."

Van Morrison, Moondance