Of Pumpkins and Flames, and the Warmth of the Fall.

The middle age of a woman is warm, and orange...not the dull, muted orange of a daytime pumpkin, but the glowing, welcoming orange of a night-time jack-o-lantern with a lighted candle inside.  The shape of us, as well as the soul of us, is at the mercy of our world.  We can fight it, and some of us do.  We can wallow in it, and some of us do.  We can embrace it..

I believe the light in all of us, has been there since the day we were born.  Each light is kept aflame differently, uniquely and gives us our individual will.  Our shell, our pumpkin, is the shelter given us that protects our flame, maybe adapting with time to adjust the feeding or the manipulation of our spirits. 

For some reason, I consider relationships more closely in the fall.  It seems a soft season.  Maybe it is the time of year that our inner flames need to be fed and nurtured, as our food supply is harvested in preparation for winter.  My age rests comfortably in fall, like being in an old easy chair.  The frolicking of summer has passed, and we all seem to need fall to steady ourselves and store away our energies along with our harvests, in preparation for the cold, harder days of winter.  I hold my friends and family a bit closer, wrapping them about me like a blanket on the cooler evenings of October.

Our experiences, in middle age, become deeper and more meaningful.  We see with a fairly clear eye where we have been, and remember the summer's energy in our dance.  And, we have a vision of what is to come, having observed the way of life that our elders have gone.  The circle of life holds our flame in the center, spinning faster and faster...until the flame puffs out, with the lingering smell of our spirits in the bit of smoke wafting.


I have a couple of young friends, even younger than my firstborn, who have shared their spirit with me in spite of our age difference.  I am learning that time and age have a different meaning to the dimension of spirit.  We have been exploring together, on a path that has connected our individual journeys, knowing we will probably end up in different places some day, but we have the comfort of companionship right now on this path.  We have connected together easily, by the pull of a magic that happens rarely.  I think our inner flames have somehow recognized a familiar warmth from each other and works like a magnet...making three flames into one.This is one circle of magic that I am thankful to have in my life right now.

I have another "circle" made up of two fellow middle-agers that I know will be in my life forever.  We have made a community of three on facebook message, and it feels like a connection that will hold through thick and thin like blood.  We are experiencing our Crone-ness together, and I know this is a circle that will not end, even with the blowing out of a flame.

I am embracing the Fall of my life.