Aim: To explore the seasonal autumn and the autumns of our lives.

• Fabric of autumn colours
• Leaves and twigs at various stages of autumn
• Candle with wood scent
• Oils with similar scent
• Pictures of autumn
• Copies of "To Autumn" by J. B. Keats
• Copy of "Alive" by R. S. Thomas
• Copy of "Endings and Beginnings" by Breda Gainey
• CDs: "Winter Gifting" by Tom McGuinness
            "Where the Rivers Flow" by David Haas
            "Light the Fire" by Liam Lawton

Suggested focal point: Fabric of autumn colours, with leaves and twigs, and candle with wood scent, and oils with similar scent; pictures that reflect God's wonderful world in autumn.

Bless to us, O God, this day fresh made 
In the chorus of the birds, bless us 
In the sound of the wild wind, bless us 
In the wet grass and autumn leaves, bless us 
Bless us, heal us, for we come to you in love and trust 
We come to you in expectant hope.

Reading: To Autumn by J B Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 
For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, 
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? 
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river shallows, borne aloft 
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Input
Autumn is a time of sheer beauty alongside the dying. Vibrant colours and low-lying mists; death and decay alongside mellow fruitfulness. Some people love autumn - others detest it. For some it is too close a reminder of the inevitability of death, whilst for others it is about the dance and swirl of the leaves. Life is the letting go as we hear in Ecclesiasticus 14.18-20:

Like clothes, everybody will wear out; the age-old law is "Everyone must die." Like foliage growing on a bushy tree, some leaves falling, others growing, so are the generations of flesh and blood: One dies, another is born.

Life and death are two sides of the same coin, the warp and weft of the fabric of life.

• Invite the group to reflect on Alive by R S Thomas:

It is alive, it is You, God. 
Looking out I can see no death. 
The Earth moves, the sea moves 
The wind goes on its exuberant journeys. 
Many creatures reflect you, 
The flowers your colour, 
The tides the precision of your calculations, 
There is nothing too ample for you to overflow, 
Nothing so small that your workmanship 
Is not revealed. 
I listen and it is you speaking. 
I find the place where you lay warm. 
At night if I waken, there are the sleepless conurbations of the stars. 
The darkness is the deepening shadow of your presence; 
The silence a process in the metabolism of the being of love ...

• How do these words reflect God's creation for you?
• Do you look out and see no death, or do you look in and see only death?
• Where do you find God's Autumn world reflected in your own 
  life right now?
• Where do you find God's autumn world not reflected at the moment?
• Do you focus on the smaller picture, or do you stand back and get the larger panoramic view?

Centering exercise: A Desert Stillness from Winter Gifting by Tom McGuinness.

Autumn is a time of beauty. A time of dying. A time of letting go. Autumn reflects part of the seasons of the soul, the cycle of life - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Seeds, blossoming, fruit, and decay.

Invite the group to offer thoughts about autumn.

• Be with examples in your life where there is a letting go and letting God.
• Who are you now?
• What do you desire to become and may need to let go of?
• Recall seeds that were planted in your life soil and which have come to fruition.
• Did they remain the same, or did they change eventually? Try to remember that growth only happens when there is a letting go, a growing up through the stages of life.
• Recall people you have had to let go of through death - "one dies and another is born." Be with your own experiences, thoughts and feelings.
• Bring to mind mini-deaths in your life experience, times of letting go.
• Do they prepare you for the ultimate letting go of life itself?
• What image of God helps you be with this reality?
• What do you need to be, to do, or to say, before the final letting go?

Song:   Do Not Let Your Heart Be Troubled from Where the Rivers Flow by David Haas

Reading: Endings and Beginnings by Breda Gainey:

Time is running out. 
Sandy hourglass trickles steadily towards its end 
Or a beginning? 
Once filled with dreams and hopes, expectations and surprise of what each grain of sand might bring. 
Happy faces, smiling eyes, quiet times in peace and harmony. 
Sad times of pain and struggle - 
Of cross roads, and crossed wire: 
Colourful places filled to over flowing with energy and living. 
Drab times of darkness, longing, awaiting the dawn. 
Time is running out. 
Time for me to let go and be. 
Time to turn to the West 
And watch the glorious sun set on the horizon of life. 
All things change and to morrow - a new beginning, a new day, 
A new dawning.

Song: The Weaver from Light the Fire by Liam Lawton.

Prayer: Loving God, you are the giver of all life, the beginning and the end. You are the mists of time and the mellow fruitfulness of life. Teach us to see life from the inside out so that we may be always able to enjoy the colours of autumn and welcome the dying when it is time for new life to be born. Fill us to overflowing with your energy and life that we may await your dawn. Amen.

Blessing: Celtic Rune from Light the Fire by Liam Lawton.

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