Hello again! Autumn is calling!

The candles in churches are out.
The lights have gone out in the sky.
Blow on the coal of the heart
And we’ll see by and by.
- The last words spoken in the play J.B., by Archibald Macleish

Hello, all. It's been a while, I know.

It was in the darkness of the autumn and winter of last year that I began this blog. It was as the darkness was passing away with the lengthening of days that my efforts began to wane. I, for one, note there is a link. Is it that I become "more" spiritual as the autumn comes, and all that darkness and seasonal depression comes knocking? Well, actually, no. For me, there is no time at which one is "more" spiritual than another. We are always spiritual. To say that someone is more spiritual at one time versus another is like saying the sky is sometimes higher up than at other times. Spirituality is not a quantitative question - because the spirit, like the sky, is always infinite. There are just times when our spirituality seems more obvious than others. When that sky suddenly holds a lot we haven't seen in a while, we look up.

As such, the autumn brings a lot of new feelings. While some are enjoyable and inspiring, the emotions of the season are usually not pleasant for me at all. It seems I have what they call "seasonal affective disorder." This is the time I get a little sad - but sometimes, I get worse. My mind can become frantic in this period - and it's all I can do to keep a cascade of negative, desperate feelings to come flooding in with those big, dreary clouds that occupy the sky and push back the sun into rampantly shortening days. Sometimes, it's just plain awful.

Yet, help always comes. One thing I learned years ago is that these dark periods are times when the spirit can be engaged. As the lights from the world go dark and cold, we are left with the brightness that comes from inside. That is when we notice our hearts and move on to understanding the possibilities.

Last year, I got a lot of help. One source was here - in writing this blog and in accepting support from all of you who read it.

So - get set - you're going to hear from me - again - about having a spiritual life in the working world. And I've come to some new understandings and have gained some experience - and I would like to share what I have found now.