Autumn is a lovely time of the year for colours with the rich mixture of bronze, red, gold, yellow and more, with shades in-between, on the trees that are shedding their leaves. It is nature starting to hunker down for the winter and when we suddenly need to endure much shorter hours of daylight.
 
I was walking along and as it was dry, I was enjoying my feet being in the leaves that lay on the ground, kicking them up just like I used to do as a child when in the woods with family and friends. Picking up the odd conker and marvelling in the shiny brown skin, only for it to go dull and start to shrivel in a matter of days.
 
Most people love trees and enjoy them albeit often they are part of our usual day. It is only when one has been blown over by a storm, or felled, that we miss their presence. The decades it took for the tree to grow, then suddenly, it is gone. All part of life.
 
As I meandered on my way I was thinking about the trees in the picture, ones I often walk by or under (when the flood waters are not there). In spring the leaf starts to appear as a delicate light green before the full vigour of the growing season, sun and the turning of the leaves greener and larger. There they stay for the summer, offering shade and doing their work making oxygen for us to breath; providing cover for birds and a playground and store house for squirrels and other creatures. The life of a tree is not dull!
 
Through the spring and summer, the tree is growing. If we look at a cut tree, the ‘rings’ of growth can be seen. The wider and softer rings are the growth from the spring and summer. The darker and harder thin rings the growth that happens at a much slower pace in the autumn and winter. The tree is always growing.
 
There is much we can learn or be reminded about from nature, if we notice and wonder.
 
This is what I was mulling over as I kicked a few more leaves…
 
·      As we enter the late stages of our year perhaps now is a good time to reflect on how much personal growth has happened during the year?
·      Has there been any strong and good learning during the ‘spring and summer’, when often the that may have come from play or exploring?
·      What about the consolidating rings of learning from the past ‘winter’ and this ‘autumn’?
·      What is planned for this upcoming winter?
 
Those thoughts have certainly made me wonder what I have achieved. They have made me wonder what else I could do - and not always in the world of work; development in other areas of our life has huge value and vitally important too. Even or especially something that takes us out of our comfort zone…and into the learning zone.
 
A good lesson from the tree.
 
Perhaps some food for your thoughts too…and action of course!
 
My best wishes,
 
Peter