A fine fall day

 

What do we know? Today, it's a fine fall day.   Everything swirls around us, like winds of uncertainty---the plague, wars, politics, the way we live our lives.  

Our lives of multiple devices, internet, cars and mobile phones, bottled Zen Water.

It's not just a metaphor to say we are living in the eye of a hurricane. Hurricane Ian has left destruction and suffering in Florida.  Now it's heading for South Carolina coast.  

After devastating Puerto Rico, Hurricane Fiona has left power outages along the coast of Canada.

Every fall is not the same. Leaves turn colors, but the timing and intensity of the colors varies from year to year. Trees are turning colors here in the midwest, now. The red maples are living up to their name.

And who would have imagined the varieties of oak trees--the sizes and shapes of the acorns!  Each one is unique, as each leaf on every tree and bush is unique in its colors and patterns.  Imagine an acorn,  in a hundred years...

Uncertainty and impermanence color our lives. Under cloudless blue sky on this last day of September,  I saw a boy stop to watch a squirrel on an oak tree, and take a picture with his phone.

 

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September Equinox

 

 

 

Happy first day of astronomical fall! 

This year, September 22 marks the autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, or the spring equinox in the Southern Hemisphere.  Because of  our tilted planet, the equinox marks the point at which the sun appears directly overhead at the equator. Day and night are about equal length. You can read more about equinoxes, here.

Pictured above is the Celtic wheel of the year, divided into solstices and equinoxes, and cross-quarter days, the changing cycle of the year.  

The season is changing.  The trees know. The shorter days  signal the changing colors of the leaves. The milkweeds and the butterflies know. The lines of geese flying south know. 

Our ancestors paid attention to these things.  Fall was to them a season of ripening, and harvest.  Many pagans still celebrate the autumn equinox, and the Mabon harvest festival, today. 

In Chicago at this time of year, the sun sets along the east-west alignment of the streets, between the tall buildings, much like the stones of Stonehenge. You can read a post I wrote about Chicagohenge here. 

The dog day cicadas are singing  more urgently now.  The other day, I found a cicada on the sidewalk. They are large and clumsy bugs, not built for flying. This one was not done flying, yet. It buzzed at me and flew away,  among the autumn grasses and bee balm. 

Crossing into fall, now,  jackets and sweaters, today.

 

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Stll Alive Here Now

 

 

 Hello Again---

Welcome back to Chicago Weather Watch.

 Due to technical difficulties, I have had to create a new blog, for writing about the weather and other things. You can read my previous blogspot posts here.

As I write this on a Sunday night,  Hurricane Fiona has made landfall in Puerto Rico, causing catastrophic flooding and power outages on the entire island.  

They are still recovering from Hurricane Maria, 5 years ago.

Here in Chicago, there may be thunderstorms tonight, but it was a beautiful blue sky day, today. Still summery warm, and still astronomical summer. We are a few days away from the September equinox on September 22. 

The leaves are just starting to change from their dark summer greens.  We are not yet at  the peak colors in the picture above. But there are seed plumes on the autumn grasses, and it's dark at 7 pm now.  

The Halloween candy is out at Walgreens, and there are signs for flu shots and the latest COVID boosters. 

Fall is coming.  Many changes,  many new things. Beginning again...

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