Is the season we call the Fall “weak” because she forfeits a bit of herself with each dying leaf? Or should we consider the Summertime “strong” because she causes trees and vines to burgeon with fruit?

Is the Winter, with its often hard, unyielding hold on the earth, less compassionate than the gentle Spring who comes to soften all things with her soft warm rain? Of course not. To fulfill its appointed purpose, each season must stand upon the ground of the one before it.

Let us learn to stand upon what we are — within what we are — so that we may, regardless of our apparent season, fulfill ourselves with what we are next given to see and become in this Great Life. Ponder this idea. It tells a secret about true self-reliance. Within it may be found a way to invoke Heaven to reveal itself.

We only become fully self-reliant when, at last, we are no longer ourselves, but are willing to take our place, consciously, in the inexorable movement of Life.