Glowing embers

The leaves are many glorious colours and crunchy underfoot, the air is crisp and filled with smoke and mornings are misty and damp.  Autumn is here!  I often think that autumn has a deep sense of nostalgia to it, we seem to be remembering, marking times and seasons and thinking about the past.  Perhaps it is a deep human need to make sense of the increasing darkness by thinking of ways to create light and warmth and to remember.  November especially has a special feel of its own which is often lost when people rush towards the light and glitter of Christmas.  We are quite a way off from Christmas, we are still getting used to the darkness and colder weather.  There is much more we can do to create light at this time of year.

 

Today is 5th November, which marks Bonfire Night here in the UK.  All around us fireworks are being set off, but here in Hazel Cottage we're having a bonfire, which is far more traditional.  Standing in the cold night air, watching a wood fire, whilst the fireworks went off, and where we could see the stars in the night sky, is rather special.  I love watching the sparks flying and the glowing embers sparkle. 

'If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently'.  

Calvin and Hobbes

 

When I'm looking at a fire, it feels as if I'm connected to the past, for hundreds of years people have sat around fires, laughed, commemorated, remembered and even put life into perspective a little. Kindling some light in the darkness perhaps.

A new life begins for us with every second.
Let us go forward joyously to meet it
We must press on, whether we will or not,
and we shall walk better with
our eyes before us
than with them ever cast behind.

Jerome K Jerome