Autumn Equinox 2025—Swirling Stormclouds

             There are storms all around me these days, but few of them hold any thirst-quenching rain.  Few bring relief from the drought and heat of climate and political change that is sweeping our world.  Most days I simply cannot stand to watch the weather, nor can I watch the news—either local or national or world.
            But I can still watch the birds as they prepare for their ageless quest to migrate to warmer climes.  I can still watch the leaves as they inexoribly show their colors in preparation for fall and winter.  And I can hope that beyond Earth’s current swarm of insatiable humanity lies a true balance of nature.
            On this particular equinox, more than ever before, I sense the impending extinction (or near extinction) of the human race. How else can one explain the surge of human ignorance, selfish power-hungry fascism, and complete lack of connection to and awareness of the natural world from which humanity arose?  Humankind has lost its way, and the biological clock is ticking—we have overused our environment, overstepped our place in the natural world, and overestimated our omniscience and power.
            In reality, we are no more than a swarm of insects, a stampede of lemmings, or a blossoming of bacterial matter.  It’s a bit painful for those of us who have brains to realize this truth.  It’s a bit easier if we simply accept that no matter how powerful our minds are, we cannot change the biological course.  The fall (not just this year’s autumn) is upon us. And most of humanity will soon go the way of the dinosaur.
            I do believe a few will survive though, and perahps there will be another epoch of life’s diverstiy on Planet Earth where all living things find a harmonius balance.  If I’m lucky enough to have my genetic imprint move forward into a world beyond the Anthropocene, I hope to wake one Autumn Equinox morning and look out at the world with love, and joy, and peace, and balance.  I hope to walk with my fellow living creatures in harmony and relish in the season’s change as has been done for millions of years.
            Meanwhile, you’ll find me somewhere beneath the yellow leaves of a turning aspen tree waiting patiently for the first snows of Winter.