Poor Will's Almanack for the time of late fall, when the sun lies in prophetic Sagittarius—a prophecy of winter to come.
The other day, a friend told me about a poem in which a meditator sits with Jesus until his ego disappears and only Jesus is left.
Sitting on my back porch in this mild afternoon, I become the Jesus of the poem, losing myself in the last leaves of autumn. I would actually like to sit with Jesus, but he's gone, leaving me behind with my stream of consciousness.
At my bird feeders, sparrows alternate with black-capped chickadees with aromas of plants and fruits I can't name or recall. Layers of other autumns. The flickering of years that have no names. I write down what I see over and over again. But I...I can't capture the anniversaries that seem to land on me, then fall away in the soft wind.
My ego pursues meaning, existential explanations about role, and persona, and value. And these two are...are late flowers brought in from the coming cold. Seeds saved and set aside in old envelopes, leaves salvaged to press.
Now the sun sets through the backyard trees, matches the dusky, sweet peach breasts of my November chickadees. And at dusk, I prove to myself once again that I exist and...and that I look for God wondering if the geese will fly over again in the early dark like they did yesterday. So many things still unnamed, unworded for winter.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack. I'll be back again next week with notes for the transition time to early winter. In the meantime, you sit outside in the cold dusk and, you know, wait for Jesus.
