I walked into my backyard with my camera, intent on finding something to shoot, instead I opted to trade the camera for binoculars as there was nothing dramatic about the light. I have been saying for the last few weeks I need a nature retreat, a place to go to just listen and enjoy nature around me, little did I know it was right outside my backdoor. When you photograph or aim to paint sometimes you miss the obvious, the drama of sound, muted colors and the low-key leading character that trades drama for beauty and simplicity.

As soon as I took my place in the center of my yard, a place that needs to be tended to for winter cleanup, I found that silence that perfect place where we seem to almost not exist, even if for just a moment. I realized how we as the human species could learn much from the simple act of watching and listening to nature. First of all there is no sadness or melancholy in nature-the somber colors of fall are just a process, a time for change. We often make the act and process of death so morbid and depressing and yet in nature it is simple and natural-just another process.

Now that the nests are empty, the birds are scavenging for food, fattening up for the process of a long winter-yes even in Texas. The leaves have all turned either colorful for fall or just simply died off the stems due to a cold snap. I listen to the sound of a storm whispering in the distance, there is a tension in the air, a beautiful simplicity that if you don’t stop, you never notice. Even the birds have given up their colorful summer hues for a winter gray and yet I don’t feel the somber feeling we as people experience-nature never stops, never depresses it just moves to the next process and there is something very comforting about that.

If we could only enjoy the feeling of everyday, be idealistic and colorful for our early life, burst like the early spring blooms and run after our thoughts and ideas with the vigor and colors of spring. In the summer of our lives, build wonderful nests that we fill with our futures, enjoy every bit of raising and freeing our young to carry on what we started however they see fit. And in the autumn of our lives, to fill our books with bright colors and share with our children and their children our many diverse pasts and all the stories and ideas we’ve collected. With the approach of winter if we could replace the black we celebrate with the thought of spring, with the feeling that everything we do is just a process, not a beginning or end. Celebrate our lives and replace the grays and blacks with muted colors with reverence to illustrate the lives we lived.

I got this feeling, a fleeting feeling that all would be okay and that was just a moment in nature, a time that I actually took a deep breath and listened to what nature teaches us every day and it was beautiful as it was comforting.