I relish Autumn in Florida. The cooler winds mixed with bright sunshine creates in me a desire to make nurturing and warming foods. As I write, I’ve put into the slow cooker my favorite recipe for vegetarian chili. Its aroma is already seasoning our house with rich and inviting flavors of fall.
In the seasonal cycles, it is perfect that as we enter fall, we release all that no longer serves us, so that we can touch upon and fully enjoy the season of Thanksgiving. We have so many reasons to celebrate, yet nestled within the acts of celebration and thanksgiving resides the need for release.
We can only savor and relish and appreciate in the moment that which is fleeting. If we bring to mind a person or pet or memory of a fond experience – we can only keep 
that image a moment and yet our body is flooded with fond emotions. The smell of cinnamon reminds me of my mom and the hot cross cinnamon buns she would bake at the start of Fall.
Our son Steve posted a photo showing two jack-o-lanterns he carved with his children, Evan and Eden. These moments are precious experiences and are where traditions come from. The initial experience cannot be kept except in a photo. Yet perhaps in the minds of Evan and Eden neural pathway memories are being created and from those pathways Traditions are created.
We follow traditions because we want to re-experience a sense of love. And perhaps in the minds of all who see this picture, memories flood back into our consciousness of love expressed long ago.
Love is not in the pumpkin nor in the cinnamon buns. They are the effect of love. Love is in the action that carves the pumpkins into jack o lanterns and the action of mixing the ingredients creating her cinnamon hot cross buns.
How does one describe love?
I don’t think we can – I can only say it sometimes smells like cinnamon or chili cooking slowly and filling our home with rich flavors of autumn.
