This is the traditional Day of the Dead, and I have to
reflect on how appropriate that is given the number of people who were killed
as a result of Sandy’s progress from the Caribbean up through Canada. The first
order of business is to remember them and all of the living people who were
affected by the storm. Things will get back to “normal” sooner or later, but
for some it may take a long time. For
some it will probably change their lives in ways that they could not have
imagined a week ago. 
We in the Pacific Northwest are lucky to have just had some
mild rain this week, as the leaves finally start their descent into fall. As I
look out my window, the big leaf maples, hazelnuts, and cottonwoods have mostly
turned a bright gold, creating a sunny-hued curtain over the grey of the sky.
It’s definitely the time of death – for the leaves, for the tops of the
deciduous orchids that will spend the winter as bulbs underground,
proliferating and gaining strength for their emergence a few months from now,
for the bracken ferns that grow by the path to the woods. From the other
window, the grape and blueberry leaves are turning yellow and red, but the
rains have stimulated the marigolds to bloom again and the brown turkey fig
tree to produce a bumper crop of huge, sweet, juicy, ripe fruit – the second
crop this year! Way to go, fig tree!
The rain has also stimulated the cyclamens to bloom early
this year, so the ground under the fig tree is a mass of pink flowers. There’s
death in some corners, and new life in others. The eternal cycle.
[Photos from Wikimedia]
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