It is Autumn, and for those of us who live in the Midwest/North, it's time to roll up your sleeves, caulk up the seams and paint. Winter's approaching with fingers of cold. It has a habit of sending slivers of water into the smallest cracks. Then the fun begins because the water expands in the cold and flexes it's muscles, pushing small cracks into sizable crevices.

Let me take you somewhere that, possibly, you have never been: fourteen feet up a ladder on the outside of a house. My head is in the corner where a huge beam meets the wall. This cozy angle provides for unimagined activity: a couple of spiders; the tiniest red bug; a hole, actually a cave entrance for some long deceased wasps (the ants got them); and, most unique, a "hang out" spot for a singular bat. (It seems to be a bachelor.)

Why have I taken you to this spot? After all, you have a busy life and bigger things to think about. I'll tell you why.

I think some of us humans seldom give notice to the very small companions that journey with us, small creatures that have a beauty of their own and follow a clear pattern of survival. They have few people in the public forum to raise voice, to debate the rise and fall of earth's temperature. They do not cause the air to be too dangerous to breathe or cause polluted water, acid rain, or angry winds and waves. Who would do such things? Whoever they are should be held accountable. Such conditions are creating havoc among the vulnerable.

Isn't it something how changing your position can change your point of view? Seeing the golden trees, the red ones, yellow and rust ones, lifts our spirits. Those true colors have been hidden from us all summer. Squirrels are out there busy planting oak trees. There's a chickadee, a warbler on its way South, a nuthatch progressing down the tree trunk, head first.

Autumn awareness requires taking time to look around, taking account of areas that need our diligent attention, then, taking action before neglect and misuse create crevices WE can't live with, (that mother nature and creatures big and small can't live with).

Sometimes awareness is all about changing your point of view.

"Autumn Awareness" by Anita Swansen, OSM.