October and November golden light, captured by leaves.

Early fall -- September sunrise on the Three Sisters in Canmore, Alberta, flowers from the St. Louis Botanical Garden, and an Indiana leaf, catching the light.

The tree branches are mostly bare now. The leaves have fallen -- on the ground, or held in a tree branch, or a faint echo in a sidewalk. Their shapes are twisted and torn, yet a few still manage to glow in the sunlight.

Changeable November -- falling leaves, falling temps, snow, sun, rain . . . . this weekend it is warm and rainy. A few weeks ago we woke to a frosty morning, full of sugar-coated leaves.

The stores all think it is the season to be jolly and practice retail therapy. Outdoors the picture is more unexpected. These photos are all from Goshen in the past two weeks -- with frost on the leaves and crabapple blooms seen on the same day, a bright red Japanese maple leaf a few days later, snow on the crabapple tree this past Sunday, a yellow iris just a couple days before that. And in the last photo, these wild turkeys seem to have a good grasp on exactly what week this is, as they run for cover!

More patterns from the prairie plantings, mostly featuring a plant I don't remember seeing before --

I'm not sure whether this last one is a mind-reading act or a friendly head massage.

I went for a walk on the millrace path one bright morning earlier this week and found dewy jewels everywhere I looked. The beginning lines from the refrain of one of the songs we sing at church kept running through my head, "Fresh as the morning, sure as the sunrise..."

One of my friends dislikes the way the refrain continues -- God always faithful, you do not change, He feels that it plays in to some people's perceptions that God is impervious, impassive, and incapable of being affected, avoiding change.

The refrain keeps singing in my head though. For me, "you do not change" connects with "always faithful" and with the sunrise -- returning every morning, yet different every time, As I look around the created world, it looks to me like God takes great delight in diversity and change. So I will go ahead and take delight in this moment and in this dew that will be gone before midday, knowing that tomorrow morning will have its own sparks of light.

The prairie plantings on campus are full of color. Earlier this summer, the campus staff mowed the plantings by the music center and the dorms, hoping to delay the blooming so that students -- most of whom aren't around in July -- would be able to enjoy the show when they return to campus. The plantings by the railroad are tall and exuberantly in full bloom; the mowed areas are shorter but still splashed with color, and catching the light in their own quiet way.

We visited the Defries Calendar Garden in the bright sunlight of a June midday. Here's a glowing desert flower, and an echo in two glowing pond flowers. And the golden eye of a tiny amphibian half hidden by a water lily leaf, sitting in a puddle and reflecting sparks of light. (It looks as big as the water lilies in these photos, but was about half the size of one of the petals). Then there's the sunlight glow of arched clematis leaves and the peculiar squiggles of an allium head.

The play of sun and shadow on leaves becomes abstract art -- more so when the breeze is tossing the branches and the light and shadow play is ever changing. Here's more glorious green from my day at Pathways Retreat earlier this week.

I had a retreat day at the cottage at Pathways Retreat this week and had the good fortune to be there on a breezy, sun-soaked spring day. I was surrounded by green woods, leaves dancing between light and shadow, the rustle of the breeze in the trees, bright bursts of pine scent, and a few white blossoms.

We returned from our travels to find green had arrived in Goshen while we were gone, reminding me of a short song learned from a college friend on a long trip years ago:
    To ope' their trunks the trees are never seen.
    How then do they put on their robes of green?
    They leaf them out.

Green's not the only color in sight, as flowers begin to blossom. Along the path we've been walking near the dam, there's the light purple of wild geranium along with the new spring green leaves. And there are the maroon bells of paw paw trees, with the maroon echoed in the trillium flowers below.

More from Tuesday's stroll through the Shoup-Parsons Woods, with spring flowers flourishing. The may apples are spreading green umbrellas, jack-in-the-pulpits proclaim spring, a fallen "caterpillar" blossom curves gracefully on a piece of bark. I bent to take a photo of trillium ready to open, and was amazed by an eight inch lacy leaf skeleton wrapping the fallen log beside them. And a little further along the path, I discovered a whole congregation of jack-in-the-pulpits. They were a pale green in comparison with the first two I saw -- a different variety or different growing conditions or just further along in their growth?

By the way, the bronze-colored trees nearing blossom that I posted last week turn out to be buckeyes and native to Indiana. Thanks, Aaron Sawatsky-Kingsley for the identification!

I was able to get down to the path along the millrace and through the woods by the dam during a brief period of sunshine yesterday. Glorious new green growth is opening everywhere -- interspersed with the greys and tans of last year's remnants. And the occasional bright red and yellow flash of a red-winged blackbird, and the echo of its konk-la-ree call. Springtime!

I don't know what this plant is, but its leaves are opening with a enthusiastic bronze burst. There were enough in this section of the Shoup-Parsons Woods to give a bronze tint to the underlayer. Some look like they will soon bloom. One cluster was a burst of bright green in the sunlight. Spring!

With snow on the ground and frigid temperatures outside, I am enjoying the play of light and life indoors -- an early blooming Christmas cactus with blossoms in flight, green and burgundy begonia leaves with light-filled veins, a swan-like gourd eye-ing the remnants of Thanksgiving decor, the light-edged leaves of succulents, and a Carolina wren that somehow found its way into our screened back porch where it found a congenial perch. I propped the door open for it when I left to run errands and by the time I got back, it had found the way out.

Two nights of hard frost earlier this week, with little wind, and the following day the leaves dropped, straight down, creating round carpets under each tree, at least until the wind picked up.

A walk along the millrace was grays and browns, instead of last week's sun-filled golds, but there were still intriguing reflections to be seen. And with most of the leaves gone, there were other sights -- stem scars, grape vine knots, and black walnuts in odd places.

One early morning last week I walked into my spiritual direction room, ready to spend some time working on a retreat with the theme Tending the Fire. The sun was barely up and the room was shadowy, but the view out the window made me pause in delight. Overnight the leaves on the neighbor's tulip poplar tree had turned golden.

It wasn't hard to find fiery fall light this past week, filling the leaves with glory. For some, even their veins seemed full of fire.

Gray sky overhead, ebony water in the millrace, and muted bronzes, golds, reds, browns and grays all around, with the still water catching and holding reflections of the branches on the shore this November afternoon. And in a few spots, water and reeds holding the leaves themselves.

Today rain fell mistily all day, and the skies stayed gray. Earlier in the week, though, there was a mix of sun and rain, resulting in more light-filled raindrops to be found. Our leaves are just starting to turn colorful, but on the dry days, other colorful things held the light.

Last Saturday I introduced my Windwatchers group to contemplative photography, telling the story of how just over two years ago several strands came together and I found myself with this new prayer practice.

Not long before, my parents had given me a small, good digital camera, one that was easy to carry with me and that gave me excellent close-ups despite my limited technical photography knowledge. I had just finished developing this website, in the process learning how to post photos, and was aware that it had a blog feature. That Sunday we had learned that our young co-pastor had stage 4 cancer, and many people had been posting photos of candles on Facebook for her.

It was a gray, drizzly week, in keeping with the sorrow many of us were feeling. I came home from an outing and noticed the raindrops on the leaves of the rose near my back door. They were beading up and full of light. It struck me as a wonderful symbol of hope in the midst of grief, much as the photos of candles were intended. I fetched my camera and recorded a number of images.

As I looked through them on the computer, the nudge came to commit to a new prayer practice, looking for sparks of light, literal or metaphorical, each day, and then to share those in a blog on my website. I began doing so, finding that taking the camera out with me, walking with an attentive receptivity and a soft focus, opened my awareness to many sparks of light and beauty that I would otherwise have gone right past. Over time the practice has evolved to posting to the blog once or twice a week, often after an opportunity for a mindful walk or time in nature. As the weather turns cold, sometimes  the "walk" is a stroll through old photos, noticing something that I hadn't before.

Saturday was a drizzly morning, much like that September day two years ago. I sent my group out with cameras and umbrellas to see what they would see. I also had time to do a little wandering and noticing and found many raindrops catching the light. Regathering, we had a good session, sharing what we noticed about what caught our eye and how it spoke to our souls.

Every fall my congregation takes an annual retreat, spending the weekend at Camp Friedenswald in Michigan. Every year Steve Shantz introduces the children to the Survival Game, every year there's a talent show full of gifts of music and friendly chuckles, every year (if the weather cooperates) there's singing and a campfire at the Hollow. And every year -- if the weather cooperates -- I make a pilgrimage around to the spring on the other side of the lake.

It's a lovely hike through the woods, around to the spot where clear water comes bubbling up into a small sandy basin, less than a foot across, and then flows away towards the lake, turning the rocks a rusty color due to the high iron content in the water.

The camp has upgraded the steps down to the spring and added a bridge across the stream. Last Saturday afternoon several of us sat and chatted there, basking in the unusually warm weather and watching the spring bubble, and the sunlight scribbling mysterious messages on the water. We played too, making boats out of nutshells and sending them downstream, where they all promptly ran aground on mats of fallen leaves. There's a lot of water flowing though, so perhaps one day they'll make it to the lake and float off to unknown adventures.

This weekend was Assembly Mennonite's annual retreat at Camp Friedenswald. John and I went up early, enjoying the drive through the countryside at sunrise, and getting to the fen before the sun had risen over the hill. Neither words nor photos can communicate the wonder of watching the play of light and mist over the wetlands, with trees and grasses slowly coming into view and then lit into fall colors, reflected in the water.

Other leaves caught the sunlight later in the day -- by the lake shore, sumac with tamarac, and a fiery fern. I sat on a pier and watched the nearly transparent minnows drifting in the lake, and then realized what I was mostly seeing was their shadows on the sandy lake bottom.