I love to rake leaves.

I love to escape from my house, with its endless to do lists, to the freedom outside.

I love to count all the different colors in one gathered sweep of the rake: crimson from our Autumn Blaze maple, gold from the river birch, copper-colored serviceberry leaves, black-red leaves from my neighbor’s hybrid maple, tan oak leaves, redbud leaves as yellow as butter, and green leaves from my daughter’s apple tree, prematurely shedding as if it can’t wait to join the excitement.

I love to fill my eyes with color, more color than I can take in. I gloat, like a miser, over all the pools of fallen gold under every tree in my neighborhood… endless sweeps of golden leaves, more gold than I could ever count, let alone hold.

I love the skittering sound the leaves make as the breeze sends them like brightly-colored spiders running across my deck.

I love seeing the rich green lawn, emerging like some exotic rug from under its covering of leaves. I love its bright emerald glow, that says, “Surprise! I am still alive, under here!”

I love to stop and smell the last yellow rose, still blooming beside my mailbox, as I virtuously take yet another wagonload of leaves and dump it by the curb.

I love it when a maple leaf drops into my hair, and I laugh up towards the almost-empty maple and say, “Got a few left, have you?”

I love the strong breezes of autumn. The wind is invigorating; everything moves. Even the shadows dance as bare tree limbs bob in the breeze.

With the leaves gone, there are vast new quantities of light, more light everywhere, a lightness of landscape and the lightness of a new season.

It seems as if the trees also enjoy their new-found freedom. I see them dancing in the breeze, as they could not before, like a young child who throws off shoes and clothes and dances for the joy of it.

In my climate, trees let go of their leaves in the fall for two reasons. The first is because they need to go dormant. They need to rest, after the busy spring, summer, and fall. If you plant an oak from my climate somewhere South, where it will never be able to go dormant, it will die.  These trees need a time of rest and recuperation.

But my trees also let go of their leaves because if they didn’t, they would break apart and die in winter, under the heavy weight of snow, coating each leaf.  When my trees let go of all their leaves before snowfall, they can handle winter’s heaviest snows without breaking.

Let go of your burdens, the trees say, lest they drag you down.

And there is more for me to learn, here.

As I look up at one last scarlet branch of maple, crimson against a soft blue sky, I wonder that that beauty was there all spring and all summer.  For science says that the red color was always there; just hidden until the chlorophyll in the leaves is gone.

It isn’t until the last season of their lives that maple leaves reveal their stunning beauty… a good thought for me to ponder, as I enter the last seasons of my life. Like them, might I show forth some inner beauty now, that was obscured before?

Yes, my trees speak to me, while I silently rake their leaves.

Take the necessary time to rest, they say to me.

Let go of your burdens, lest they drag you down.

Shine forth your beauty, at whatever season it appears.

And, when change comes, throw yourself open to it. Embrace the new light. Celebrate, with the wind, all the newness of this new season ahead.