The Color of Abundance

LaSal Autumn Road

I was on a field trip with my son several weeks ago, walking through the forest around Wood’s Lake in the San Juan Mountains, when it struck me suddenly what autumn smells like. 

It smells like purple. 

There are so many scents to autumn, it’s hard for most people to narrow their favorite down to just one.  Just a week ago I was picking out scented candles and the store had a few selections that were supposed to be remeniscent of the fall of the year.  They offered “mulled cider”, “pumpkin pie”, ”apple spice”, “mandarin cranberry”, “toasty fireside”, and a few others.  They all smelled wonderful, in fact I bought a jar of each because who can decide on just one?  But there wasn’t a single scent that gathered all that autumn is for me and bottled it up to be taken out and enjoyed later.

But as I walked through those woods in late September I finally got the purple fragrance of fall.  From the rich Murex snail shell stains of the Phonecians to the cloaks of kings, and from pop icons to little girls’ “princess power” playthings the color of purple has been well loved and used in human history.  It was the foundation for an entire civilization, the color of segregation in South Africa, the color of new life to the Roman empresses in the Porphyry, the color that seperated the kings from the commoners, and to me the color of abundance. 

Abundance is at the heart of autumn.  My husband, William, often comments on the wealth of late summer and autumn in the garden.  The summer fruits are still growing, the winter crops are finally maturing, the gathering in of crops begins and there is plenty and to spare on the farm table.  It is every gardeners delight. 

Is is also every gardeners sorrow.  For with the arrival of the harvest abundance comes the awareness that the winter is ahead.  The garden will become lean again,   the soil that sustains us will grow cold and still and the splendor of the leaves in their finery will give way within days to the bare beauty of limb and vine.  While we gather our crops in the warm afternoon sunshine, placing the hubbard and banana squash in the root cellar, the apples in the basement and the cabbages beside them, we are already fretting over whether we have enough wood for our winter fires, enough blankets on the beds to keep out the chill, and as parents whether or not the children will need new coats and caps this year.  Even in the midst of all the bounty, the subtle bite in the wind reminds us to prepare for what is coming in the months ahead. 

It seems to be the season of reminders.  It pushes us to remember what has been and rejoice in it; to look forward to what will be and prepare for it.  It is absolutley the season for teaching us to live in the present.  To look around at each breathtaking moment and soak it in.  The gentle stroke of the wind sent showers of aspen leaves skittering across my path as  I watched the children that day in the San Juan’s running and laughing through the forest, the leaves fluttering around their feet, twirling with the least provocation into a frenzied dance.  The youths gathered them up by the armfuls, flinging them into the air just to watch them fall again.  The death of the year was all around them and yet they rejoiced, without fear, in the beauty of the Earth; accepted, without qualification, the gift of life today.  Indeed, I have a suspicion that when the snow is falling, instead of the leaves, they will be equally filled with joy at the gift.

And so I walked through that landscape, relishing the moment, embracing life in the midst of the dying leaves and breathed deeply of all the world around me had to offer.  This is what I breathed that day:  the crisp smell of fir and spruce needles, the clean smell of a mountain lake, the pungent odor of decaying aspen and oak leaves, the dry smell of finished pumpkin vines, the sweet fragrance of apples fallen from the trees. 

This is the smell and color of Abundance, this is the smell of purple.