It has always been a puzzle and rather sad to me when I think of the number of people I meet at this time of year who have such a dread for the coming changes. So much of their energy seems spent fighting off depression, while seeing autumn and the coming of winter as merely the death of summer.

We see in spring a time of renewal and reinvigoration, but forsake the same in autumn when it is probably an even more important time for the continuation of life. We ignore nature�s lessons that are so often right under our noses.

The first and foremost rule of nature is change. Nothing is forever.

Autumn is change, and change can only be viewed as opportunity. The pronghorn buck and elk bull see the possibilities as this is the time of the year in which they sow their own seeds for the future. Observe the oak dropping its acorns or the ponderosa pine shedding its cones to ensure future generations. They all do this even before providing for their own survival through winter.

We are the products of a planet that works in cycles. And working successfully within a cycle does not mean to lamenting the time or season of the year, but seeing how it fits within the scheme of things and making the most of it.

The cycle of the leaves is nearly complete. The boughs of aspen stands and cottonwood groves now hang almost bare, shorn of that harvest of gold that was ubiquitous only a couple of weeks ago. Now, November approaches�depressing to some, but to others a brief interlude between autumn and winter.

The leaves, the leaves�everywhere they lie, in a bounteous array, and yet I am lost to keep my hands from them. Along the dark and moody banks of a thousand woodland streams and prairie ponds, their myriad colors embellish and warm�a perfect companion to the stark and lonely blue of waters visited only by a midday sun. Decaying, moss-enshrouded tree stumps now wear them as crowns, as though reminiscent of their time as monarchs of the forest. I think they often represent more than we know.

-from the ninth chapter, "Walking in the Honey Wind"