Let nature be your teacher

Ah, I feel the shift! The leaves have begun to change colour, the temperature has dropped, and the first crisp chills have started to hang in the morning air...

by IgnisFatuusll @ dA

I'm sure I say it every year, and with every change in season...but I feel as though I must carry on sharing this feeling, because it is just too uplifting and inspiring to contain! I want to be out connecting with nature and finding inspiration in the wild places! I want to find a way to capture all the feelings of autumn in words! I love the way everything is on fire, and yet it can be so cold...it's magical!
Each year my birthday becomes more and more entwined with celebrating the first day of autumn, as I can welcome in the new season along with a new year of my life. Perhaps that explains why autumn is my favourite season - I'm an autumn baby!

As I am struggling to express all my crazy nature-loving feelings, and as I am using far too many exclamation marks in proportion to the number of words on the page, I've included a poem by William Wordsworth who, as always, says it best...

THE TABLES TURNED

AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT

        UP! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
          Or surely you'll grow double:
          Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
          Why all this toil and trouble?

          The sun, above the mountain's head,
          A freshening lustre mellow
          Through all the long green fields has spread,
          His first sweet evening yellow.

          Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
          Come, hear the woodland linnet,                             
          How sweet his music! on my life,
          There's more of wisdom in it.

          And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
          He, too, is no mean preacher:
          Come forth into the light of things,
          Let Nature be your teacher.

          She has a world of ready wealth,
          Our minds and hearts to bless--
          Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
          Truth breathed by cheerfulness.                             

          One impulse from a vernal wood
          May teach you more of man,
          Of moral evil and of good,
          Than all the sages can.

          Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
          Our meddling intellect
          Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
          We murder to dissect.

          Enough of Science and of Art;
          Close up those barren leaves;                               
          Come forth, and bring with you a heart
          That watches and receives.