September Breeze

I sat out in the front porch this morning for the first time in a week. I’ve been out of pocket getting the house ready for an inspection. Cleaning, decluttering, catching up on things that had been put off for a while.

The hot breath of summer is gone and replaced by a cool September breeze this morning. I sat back in the chair, aware of the ache in my back from too much lifting over the weekend. I glanced up at the bright blue sky and a few wispy clouds shapeshifted their way across my horizon. A dog morphed into a dragon that morphed into a weird shape and then faded away.

I thought over the last week, how my daughter and I took a break and went to Barnes & Noble for an Artist’s Date. Then back to cleaning and decluttering. We got into a mood to get as much done as we could and both of us were worn out.

The gentle breeze pushed more clouds across, passing under the bright sun that changed them to pure blinding white until they passed and then returned to a muted gray.

Down the street a leaf blower buzzed and there was the hum of a lawn mower. A dog barking and the train blaring, it’s horn filled the air, and then all died down to a silence, including the breeze.

The busyness of spring and summer is shifting, slowing down, and coming to an end. The last of the baby grackles is still following its mama around, squawking “feed me! feed me!” mouth open, waiting for food to magically drop in.

Now the breeze picks back up and the sunflowers sway back and forth, heads bent, petals gone, all gone to seed. I hear a ‘scritch, scritch’ and see one of the first dry leaves pushed by the breeze along the pavement.

Now the clouds have grown massive, bumping into each other and filling the sky. Their underbellies dark grey and heavy. No rain in the forecast, but I hear a ‘drop’, ‘thud’, ‘drop’ as a few raindrops hit a sunflower leaf here and there and then it’s quiet again.

A little brown bird perches on a dried sunflower and balances on the swaying stem as it pecks deep into the center for seeds. This. This is why we planted the sunflowers. For this moment of seeing a happy little bird partaking of the abundance at summer’s end.

Click here if you are curious about the spiritual meaning of dragons.