Consider the asters

Retirement has finally hit. For the first time since I retired at the end of June I find myself with more time and energy than things to do. This simply means that I have to reshape my life around different goals and practices and I have to do it all by myself. There are no assignments or requirements and few obligations.

If this sounds like paradise to you, think again. It’s fine for a day or two, but the rest of my life? What was I thinking?? Well, I was thinking that I knew what I did not want to continue doing even though I wasn’t sure how I would fill the gap in my life that would open by quitting that great-part-time-job-for-a-good-cause. Now I have some sense of new directions but have not quite gathered the momentum or the certainty to propel myself in any direction. I am in a liminal period. I have been here often before. I know the drill for times like these: pay attention to the here and now.

Fortunately, this liminal time opens up in my favorite season of the year. A weird hot spring and summer have morphed into a gorgeous fall. I have been taking daily walks down the road to Dayton Wet Prairie a former Nature Conservancy site just a mile away, recently acquired by a local conservation group. Wet blooming prairies are relatively rare so we’re fortunate to have this one so close.

Most of the year Dayton Wet Prairie is just a drab, swampy mess. There are a few spring flowers, but the woods around our house have a much showier array in April and May. However, in late August the prairie begins to put on a real show. The summer Joe Pye weed and wild sunflowers are joined by the goldenrods. 

Then, as the rosy Joe Pye weed fades into September, the asters begin to bloom. Purple, lavender, and white among the brilliant goldenrod.

This seems to be a good year for wild asters. A bouquet of white ones greets us at the end of our driveway. I have never seen them before. 

But then, I have never paid attention to the wild asters like I am doing now. This is a between time for me. I don’t know where I am going. I have no assignments, no big projects lined up. Instead, I watch the prairie become beautiful.

I am taking no thought for the morrow. I am considering the asters, how they grow.

For more Dayton Prairie photos go here.