Tomorrow will be a marker of sorts for me, which makes today a marker, too: another threshold, another line of demarcation, another interstice between what was and what will be.
It’s part of the reason why I love this season so, this slightly breathless anticipatory sensation, a time to revel in the fiery color of Earth’s dress and the clarity of the light while awaiting the more difficult beauty of winter. it’s a season in which the thresholds manifest upon the face of the land itself, and in the skies that embrace it.
Unlike the lands of my childhood, the skies here are not much given to fog, especially this time of year. We are known here for intense and sharply angled light, for air so clear and sharp that it feels like glass. On the average October dawn, it hurts to breathe, ever so slightly; the air at this elevation is so pure that it abrades one’s nose and lungs, too long accustomed to the heavier, exhaust-tinged atmosphere of summer.
It’s a good sort of pain, though: the kind that wakes your spirit from its slumber, shocking your senses back into full awareness of all that surrounds you.
We have had far less of that air than usual this month so far, a rare spate of autumn rains having visited lower clouds and softer light and, yes, the occasional unfurling ribbon of fog upon us.
The fog seems its own line of demarcation, its own threshold between worlds, a way of rendering visible one of the interstices that normally are not given to us to perceive.
On mornings like this, when the clouds shroud the summits and the long white misty ribbons floats above the land, it is almost possible to believe that I am home . . . or, rather, that the spirits have brought my old home to me here, at this one.
The dawn air is soft and slightly damp, Father Sun’s glow muted behind a dove-gray blanket, allowing us to breathe more easily and to look upon the world clear- and open-eyed. October’s light in the place is a glorious thing, but its sheer intensity sometimes conceals as much as it reveals; human eyes are not suited to taking in its brilliance unfiltered, and coping with the glare narrows one’s view. The fog mediates between our mortal abilities of perception and the acute clarity of the world that is, allowing us the grace occasionally to see a broader, fuller scape.
It’s a gentle start to a day on which I prepare to consign a part of my life to the past, crossing a threshold into a future that will be much the same, yet altered over the days and weeks and months to come in some new and wonderful ways. Fog and mist shroud the edges still, but the immediate view comes increasingly clear, and it is beautiful indeed.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
