A Fall Morning

With the change to standard time on November 1 dawn come earlier.  In early fall, it's dark at 6 am, and on clear days I can see the stars and planets on my walk to yoga or work.  Then the time change comes, and by 6 am it's beginning to get light.

Even so, this morning I had a good view of the three planets that are lined up in the eastern sky.  Brightest, and closest to the horizon, is Venus.  Above and to the right, is the dimmer, redder Mars.  Almost in line with them, still farther up to the right, is Jupiter - by far the largest, and farthest away.
I stopped and watched for a bit, thinking about the geometry involved - Venus closer to the sun than Earth, and Mars and Saturn farther away - but aligned in orbit so the three appeared in the same small patch of the sky.  I thought of the marvelous sensitivity of sight - that I can see the faint reflection of light that has travelled half a billion miles from the Sun to Jupiter and reflected back another half billion or so miles to the tiny patch of receptor cells in my eyes.

Soon the Earth will turn into the Sun's streaming field of light, and the planets and stars will fade into the morning sky.  But the stars are still bright enough that I spot Orion rotating off to the west, not hanging right overhead as it does this time of morning early in the fall.

A crisp breeze blew as I walked on, vibrating leaves free from the trees to twirl and flutter down to the ground, where my feet made swishing, crunching sounds in the growing piles.

Energy.  It's all energy - the light, the sound, the movement of the wind, the downward pull of gravity, that keeps my feet on the ground, draws the fluttering leaves down, and keeps the planets in their orbits - and my awareness of it all.