The signs of fall are all around us. And as I see the colors of the season I begin
Falling In
love with the season once again. Though the days are shorter and cooler the beauty that surrounds us is awe-inspiring. Tuesday morning I spent some time at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum looking to see how the fall colors were developing.
And while there was much green still to be seen in the treetops and bushes, colors were popping out here and there in most beautiful ways.
Though the tall sugar maples have not fully turned I could see bright patches of color high in the trees.
And other landscapes were just beginning to show subtle fall colors. I was especially delighted by the combination of fall’s gold leaves combined with tiny purple asters in interspersed in the gold.
The scene reminded me of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s reason for wanting to study botany because she wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together.
…it goes back to the story of when I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old, and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together.
… I thought that surely, in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together.
And I was told that that was not science; that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school …
And yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics, and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complementary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, OnBeing Interview
Why Beauty Matters
Beauty is woven into the everyday fabric of our lives. In fact studies performed on infants suggest that an appreciation for beauty may be wired into our brain. In many species in nature beauty serves as a form of advertising.
The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows.
― Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
There are innumerable kinds of beauty. But for me, I delight in the beauty of ordinary nature all around me.
There is the beauty of the light at sunrise, the amazing light show of the aurora borealis, the tiny details of a single leaf on the sidewalk, or the grace of a fading flower along a path.
What beauty can you find in these early autumn days? I hope you too find joy in falling in love with autumn’s beauty.
Today, like every other day,
we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.— Rumi
May you walk in beauty.
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