The dying of the year...

A fine mist has descended on the countryside, and with it a deep sense of peace born of acceptance, and submission to a power greater than its own.
For Nature's first burst of autumnal defiance is over; she knows now that she cannot stop the advance of winter. She is like an old woman who knows her work is done (and has the quiet pride of knowing it well done), and now she lays aside her knitting, and sits quietly in her chair by the fire, slowly rocking back and forth, back and forth, waiting, without fear, for the end. And yet she knows, this wise old woman, that it is not the end...

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."