This is a crazy time, what with the Transition Team/Cabinet worries, Sarah Palin yucks and yucks, the bail-out blues, house price collapses, job losses, global financial turmoil, and every other thing to make every one of us clench our stomachs up to our throats and fear the future.
But ... and this is the point of this diary ... as crap as it is for the 'economic world' to be collapsing around us, we'd be idiots to forget the glory of nature all around us.
In no way do I want to denigrate the horrors that some of us are living through. But considering that my own jobless status can only last another 10 months (by which time I'll have blown through all of my retirement savings ... I'm only 44 ... I simply have to stop thinking about that) before repossession rears its head over my own airspace -- I gain the only consolation possible through the glories of nature.
Disclaimer: I'm an agnostic. I haven't met a God that I could truly get behind. Being a scientific sort, it's difficult to acknowledge publicly that I don't have a serious argument with Intelligent Design [but I do NOT adhere to all, possibly any, of the points raised in that link] - it's just that the Chaos Theory leaves me cold. Only a God with a sense of humour could conceive of the mosquito and its importance in the Circle of Life. And what the h*ll is the deal with the armadillo?
Disclaimers aside, and a nod toward the 'cute pets' theory of DKos, I leave you with a reminder of Nature, who in all her glory radiates amazing colours in this, the season of change, the transition from the lushness of summer to the cold somnolescence of winter's chill.
I'm from Los Angeles, where the seasons are best described as 'Earthquake Season', 'Fire Season', 'Mudslide Season', etc etc. I now live near Epping Forest in southeast England, and the balm of my life is my opportunity - greater in my current unemployed status - to revel in the glory of nature making the Autumn transition.
I welcome your own pictures and stories of how the darkening of the days, and the brightening of the leaves, have had an effect on your own way of thinking.
With all due respects to flickr.com ...