It is the peak of autumn here in the Finger Lakes. The maples — faithful companions since childhood, whose seedlings we once clipped to our noses in laughter, whose leafy canopies sheltered us through the dog days of summer — now stand transformed. Their limbs hold a painter’s palette of fiery hues: embers of red, molten gold, and orange that burns with an almost holy light.

When the sun finds its way between the clouds, those colors blaze against a sky of brilliant blue, the kind of blue that feels eternal. Sunlight splashes across the leaves, as if heaven itself is stroking the landscape with a warm blessing.

But today, the mountain of clouds has crept in quietly, like a tide advancing on the shore. Shadow covers hill and water. Rain weighs heavy on the leaves, bending them under its touch. Wind tears them down in spirals, a final release, scattering them across the wet earth in a carpet of farewells.

The solemn shift from summer’s brightness and autumn’s playful dance is underscored by the clock’s quiet betrayal — the reversal of daylight savings time. Overnight, we are plunged into darkness before dinner. The days shrink, and deep within we feel a tug — the mourning of what is being taken, even as something else arrives.

A wisdom teacher once wrote: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven… a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4). It is a truth that sits uneasily in the human heart: that joy must sometimes loosen its grip so that we can learn the grief that shapes compassion; that light fades so we can discover the holiness hidden in the dark.

We mourn the exchange of time that brings change — the trading of radiant afternoons for a dusk that arrives too soon. But the turn of the seasons is never wasted. In autumn’s letting go, nature teaches us to trust that release is not the end of the story. We learn to believe that God is already preparing a winter rest, a womb of quiet from which spring’s green will rise.

The wind scattering leaves across wet soil is a gentle tutor to the soul: there is beauty in endings, even as we long for beginnings. Change is always a pull on the heart — but it is also God’s invitation to step into a rhythm that keeps us rooted, growing, and becoming.

As the maples shed their last offerings, perhaps we, too, can practice letting go. Not with despair, but with a deep whisper of gratitude, knowing every season — even the shadowed ones — is part of God’s tender work in us.