Romancing Autumn

Feature Image:
Photography by Bridget Beth Collins @flora.forager

Golden trees, gray skies. Autumn is the season of mystery. Eerie nights, liminal days. A time when the veil is thin. A time when ghost stories feel true. Flannel bedding goes on. Sweaters come out. September’s harvest moon casually suggests, Why not drink our wine outside together while we still can?

This year, vow to notice and share magical things. The more we start noticing and sharing these experiences, the more magical our shared reality becomes. To romance autumn is to appreciate the season and all its sensory pleasures. Practicing this artful way of living connects us to the beauty in our own lives.

Let’s take late afternoon walks and admire the colors. Sip a London Fog. Link arms with someone we love.

Let’s dig our hands deep inside carved pumpkins. Make tomato soup with brown lentils and Manzanilla olives, chili seasoned with smoked paprika and ground cinnamon. Let’s drink hot cider at apple orchard picnic tables.

Let’s invest in soft flannel nightgowns. Light candles that smell of forests. Ask our ancestors to visit us in dreams. Buy prayer cards to bring true love.

Let’s rent cozy cottages in quaint storybook villages, places that once only seemed real in library books and folklore.

Invite our sisters over. Tell each other stories about when we were wild.

Let’s adorn ourselves in black lace dresses, cameo chokers, pearl-buttoned cardigans. Slip our feet into lace-up ankle booties. Paint our nails the colors of blood oranges, cold cherries, pomegranates.

Let’s gather colored leaves and pine cones for our altars. Wake up in the ambrosial hours and read poetry by Lorca and Neruda.

Let’s fall in love with someone new. Share sugary doughnuts and hot chocolate on the roof. Watch Dracula (the Bela Lugosi one) by the fire.

This autumn, let’s keep a diary of the beauty we see. These glimmers are a doorway back into enchantment, into a true romance with the world.

Let’s keep putting ourselves out there in little ways, each and every day. We won’t wait for permission or worry about acceptance. Let’s show up and allow the world to align itself in serendipitous ways. Magic is always with us. It’s up to us to notice.

Despite everything, let’s keep dreaming with our hearts wide open.