Autumn has a strange mood, and this mood is unpredictable. The moods of the rest of the seasons seem obvious, banal, and uninteresting. Spring is a rolling hymn to revival. Summer is an ecstatic and giddy thrill of prosperity. Winter is a stiff reserve of an old man who already has one foot in the grave.
But autumn… In the autumn there is openness and vulnerability. There is preparedness for anything, including the worst, there is obedience and trust. But there is no doom. Autumn is like a new page. Or rather a new book. Its plot is unknown and its style is unfamiliar. Thus anything is possible. There are no boundaries. There are only heavenly heights, dim sun, drizzling rain and leaves, leaves, leaves…
This time of year always stratifies me. All of a sudden I am able to hear everything and to see everything. And it’s crazy because my brain does not have enough resources to process all that. All of a sudden every little seen and heartfelt detail seems as important and lasting as the existence of the entire civilization.
I see all these lives, growing out of the objects of the outside world, as if I myself have lived those lives. And with this comes the feeling that I have always been, that I have always lived. The fact that I was born, and the knowledge of the impending death cease to be of great importance. Because these events are transient. But my inner being is immortal.
What would Carl Jung say about this? Perhaps, that for some reason my individual psyche begins to come into contact with the universal human psyche. Suddenly an access to another’s experience is granted. And this experience is perceived as my own, personal experience.
Here’s a theory: maybe when we die, we simply merge with that immortal being in us? It will be us and at the same time not us. Personality will not disappear; it’s only personality boundaries that will vanish. Because the boundaries make us mortal. Their disappearance restores us.
*A. S. Pushkin, “Autumn”, 1833
Photos courtesy of Kay Arne Jensen.
