Fall and Changing Woman

By Jane Greiner
Sun nature correspondent
The Navaho Indians have an important god named Changing Woman, who some say was the daughter of the sky and the earth. As a non-native I had a hard time comprehending the importance of this god until I began to understand that she is named for the cycle of life.

In a book called “Talking to the Ground,” by Douglas Preston, several Navahos tell the story of how Changing Woman was named. She was found as a baby and grew and then died and disappeared and then came back again. She is called Changing Woman because she lives and dies and disappears and then comes back over and over again. She doesn’t just represent the cycle of life; she is the cycle of life.
Changing Woman reminds me of the way all things on earth are a part of an ever-changing cycle. From mountains to butterflies, all things follow the pattern of birth, life, death, and re-birth. The individual may disappear but that which it is a part of continues onward. Even mountains, for example, rise up, and then slowly wear down, only to be followed by new mountains rising up again somewhere else. Their cycles take millions of years but are never-ending. A flower grows, blooms, and then dies away, only to reappear the very next season. Not the same individual flower, but the same flowers come back over and over again.
Fall is upon us here in our little piece of Paradise. I respond to the seasons in the same way I imagine humans have since time began. I am both invigorated and saddened by the cool winds blowing lightly through the trees. I mourn the end of hot summer afternoons spent playing in the waves of Lake Michigan. I miss the flowers that bloomed in such profusion. It sometimes felt as if I was undeservedly blessed simply to witness such color and life. I miss the simple pleasure of wearing shorts and sandals, and the assurance of an endless supply of long warm days.
But the cooler fall air invigorates and inspires me to activity unthinkable in the heat of summer. I look around the house for odd jobs that need doing and I actually do them! I go outside with a saw and a wheelbarrow and trim trees, gather kindling, and stack firewood. I pull up the garden, leaving the plants on top to leach into the ground for next year’s tilling. I drain and roll up the hoses and find storage for them in the garage. A part of me rejoices looking forward to winter, the time of nesting-in, cozying up, and slowing down. I start planning winter woodworking and craft projects to keep me busy when it is too dark and too cold to spend much time outside in the long months of January, February and March.
Another part of me feels a sadness welling up inside for days and life gone by, lost now forever, never to be seen again. Thinking of Changing Woman I realize it is fitting and right, and I remind myself that, in the end, it is just the way it is. Fall is the part of the Changing Woman that is the going away. I am finally being forced to deal personally with death. My mother is slowly dying in a nursing home in Kalamazoo. I force myself to see her fading away as part of Changing Woman.
As part of the overall cycle, she is not alone; everyone will die someday. I too will follow my mother back to the earth one day, inevitably. But her passing seems imminent and as I contemplate it, the sadness clutches at my throat. When I can, I resolutely bring Changing Woman to mind and tell myself that we are all involved in this cycle; this living and dying and new life again. Whether good, or acceptable to me, or desirable, it is at least beautiful in its symmetry and absoluteness. To balance the inevitability of death, there is also the promise of new and continuing life. I draw consolation from that, and even at times, a sense of rightness and wellbeing.
Fall leads from summer to winter. In winter there is much dying back and clearing away and making room. And then spring will lead the way back out.