Guided Meditaiton - Autumn

Autumn

In Autumn I can smell somebody drinking their hot chocolate and making noise as I walk by their houses.
In Autumn I can smell the cold, frosty wind blowing by as I am walking on the grass.
In Autumn I can touch the wind blowing my hair and the Autumn  leaves stuck in it like a bee in a flower.
In Autumn I can touch the crunchy leaves in my hands, turning into pieces and being blown away by the wind.
In Autumn I can hear footsteps stepping on the leaves making sounds like crunchy crisps.
In Autumn I can hear the birds singing on a chilly morning from my window.
In Autumn I cans see the wind blowing the leaves like a fan blowing a paper.
In Autumn I can taste the orange, green, red leaves that are crunchy, wanting to eat and hoping to taste like crisps

- sanjita gurung

   Here in New England, November is a humbling month.  The glorious colors are gone and the trees are stripped of their leaves.  Everything seems to be holding its breath in anticipation of what is to come.  There is still a lot a contemplative photographer can experience in a walk through the November landscape.

   The poem above seeks to stimulate all the senses to participate in the experience of an Autumn wood.  Copy it, print it out and take it with you...find a place to just sit, an old fallen log perhaps.  Let all your senses revel in the joys of November. 

   I've always felt that November has a particular smell about it.  Near my home are wild grape vines and when I can smell the ripen grapes I know it is November.  I also love seeing the bare bones of the landscape, the dark trees etching lace-like patterns in the grey sky. Pulling the seed heads from the wild flowers and scattering them is my way of believing in the future.  Some will sprout no doubt and I can feel I've aided their survival in some small way like those plump grey squirrels burying acorns they'll forget to dig up.

    After a time of just sitting and taking in the "Novemberness" of the landscape, see what draws your attention and what inspires you to release the shutter.