As December begins, so truly does a new year. Even though plenty of remnants hang on in the land around me – a few pear, beech and lilac leaves, some forsythia and Japanese honeysuckle – there is not enough to keep me looking for the past in this present, not enough to keep me from plotting the beginning of another cycle. Notebook

Between the end of summer and the shortest day of the year, I battle a constant feeling of disbelief. All things come to a halt rapidly; they die, die, die; the garden is all brown stalks and the ground is tightening. What continues to grow and bloom does so in isolation. Jamaica Kincaid EPHEMERIS FOR THE SECOND WEEK OF LATE FALL

The landscape is like the turning firmament above us, and its particles and fruits are earth stars that revolve through memory, each season containing the recollection and therefore the soul of all those other seasons which preceded and which are to follow. Poor Will’s Almanack, November 2006 THE ASTRONOMICAL OUTLOOK

Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole One all-extending, all preserving Soul Connects each being, greatest with the least Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beast Alexander Pope THE ASTRONOMICAL OUTLOOK IN THE THIRD WEEK OF MIDDLE FALL

“Come little leaves,” said the wind one day, “Come o’er the meadows with me and play; Put on your dresses of red and gold, For summer is gone and the days grow cold.” George Cooper EPHEMERIS FOR THE SECOND WEEK OF MIDDLE FALL

Although a life of retreat offers various joys, none, I think, will compare with the time one employs in the study of herbs, or in striving to gain some practical knowledge of nature's domain. Walafrid-Strabo, HORTULUS, 9th Century A.D. EPHEMERIS FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF MIDDLE FALL

Days, months and years are no more time than rulers are what they measure. From the Siva-Tantra EPHEMERIS

I shall perform upon myself the sort of operation that physicists conduct upon the air in order to discover its daily fluctuations. I shall take the barometer readings of my soul, and by doing this accurately and repeatedly I could perhaps obtain results as reliable as theirs. Jean Jacques Rousseau EPHEMERIS FOR THE THIRD WEEK OF EARLY FALL

In reality, history fluctuates as the face of the landscape from morning to evening. What is of moment is its hue and color. Time hides no treasures; we want not its then, but its now. Henry David Thoreau EPHEMERIS FOR THE SECOND WEEK OF EARLY FALL

In the course of each of the four seasons, inevitably, if the good weather continues for a period of time, rain, wind or snow follow. One must always think of the changes in heaven and earth. In the same way, one must be prepared for changes in the mind of a person…. Miyamoto Musashi EPHEMERIS FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF EARLY FALL