The Passing of Indian Summer

I love Indian Summers.

For those who live in a perpetual warm climate year round, an Indian Summer is a  period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that sometimes occurs in autumn in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere during September to November.

It’s a beautiful time.

The days are warm and often sunny, the nights chilly and clear. The air seems to sparkle with highlights that still linger from hot summer days. 

Of course, here in the Midwest, the trees shine in glory with their pageant of the year, turning colors of gold and bronze and red and a warm, soft orange. They remind us that nothing lasts forever … beauty, vitality, all are in a moment’s glory. That as much as we wish it to be otherwise, life turns and twists and goes on.

Today is the madness of the election for the president of the United Sstates. Never in my 67 years have I seen such chaos, hatred, and ignorance from both sides. If there is a true heart that beats for the wellfare of the people, it is well hidden under layers of misunderstanding, frustration, and sensationalism.

Perhaps it is in the folds of warm November days and cold November nights we can find solace, one way or another.

The U.S. Sun wrote an article shares the origin of the phrase “Indian Summer”:

It’s claimed the term was first coined by the Native Americans, and it was used there in the late 18th century. The first reported use of the word was recorded in Letters from an American Farmer in 1778 by American soldier turned farmer J. H. St. John de Crèvecoeur.

“Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer,” he wrote.

 The world has been observing this second warming of the land ever since the pilgrims settled in America; since Europe started building castles, since the Chinese started building dynasties. It may skip a year or two; it may be hot as sin one day and snow the next. 

Nature is wonderful in its beauty and ebb and flow.

The waves of politics will always ebb and flow, too. All we can do is hold on, seize the day, and continue doing what we were brought onto this Earth for.

Continue to live — to live and love and walk with the sun on our faces and the breeze in our hair. To find the good in each other and nurture that feeling so it flows as easily as fall to winter or day to night.

Let the good moments surround you and become a part of you.

Like Indian Summers.