the days are warm and the nights are cool now.  autumn is the prettiest time of year here in the upper midwest. my husband’s favorite time of year.  but i have a more complicated relationship with fall–the threat of so many months of deep cold, and early darkness weighs on me. i know it is not very zen of me, but I wonder, if the buddha had grown up in minnesota, whether a little bit of worrying about the future, putting up some firewood and root vegetables, wouldn’t have been considered a path to enlightenment.

river willow leaves

rice creek regional trail, saint paul, minnesota