“Whoever cannot seek
the unforeseen sees nothing,
for the known way
is an impasse.”

Heraclitus

The clouds this morning are almost smoke like creating a thin veil over the buildings of Seattle.

Seattle’s Mourning Veil

I think nature is bemoaning the passing of summer and getting ready for the winter rains.

Contrasts of a fall mourning

As I stare at the veiled horizon, the colors right in front of me beckon.  The fading bright red leaves of our newly planted Japanese maple say hi.  The wisps of the waving grass stalks in our deck planter beckon my attention.  An almost fallen leaf caught in the snare of an abandoned spider web playfully leaps into my view.

So much to seek as I brighten in the shortening days of fall.

I return to reading Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue:

“Faithfulness to individuality is at the heart of compassion and creativity.

“More often than not, we feel so enmeshed in the life we have that the prospect of change appears remote or impossible.  Thus, we continue on the tracks that we have laid down for ourselves.  We are unable to think in new ways and we gradually teach ourselves to forget the other horizons.  We unlearn desire.  Quietly, over time, we succumb to the dependable script of the expected life and become masters of the middle way.  We avoid extremes and after a while we no longer even notice the pathways off to the side and no longer sense the danger and disturbance that could be experienced ‘out there’.  We learn to fit our chosen world with alarming precision and regularity.  Often it takes a huge crisis or trauma to crack the dead shell that has grown ever more solid around us.” p. 173

As the veil over Seattle is a transition between night and day and an early fall marine layer, I am at the transition from being enmeshed in the business of doing business to a new world as an elder.  The middle way is in the past.  The dead shell is shattered.

The Middle Way

Onward.