I once caught a part of a phrase or quotation – “…a testimony to diversity.” It seems to me this autumn's leaf change has certainly been that. I first started seriously noticing the changes on October 27th when I was driving early in the morning from Indianapolis to Delaware, OH near Columbus. I had started about 5:30 to make a 9:00AM meeting. By the time I was headed east on I-70, of course, I was driving into the rising sun. The fact that I was protecting my eyes with dark glasses did not keep me from enjoying the wonderful array of color.

There would appear long stretches of still very rich green trees. Then suddenly tops and ends of branches were showing off like a woman who had just had her hair streaked or highlighted. Occasionally a group of trees would be, individually, some color other than green – one golden yellow, one maroon red, one orange brown – each standing out brilliantly on its own but blending together more gracefully than any artist could do with a brush, or than any conference could unite a group of people of different faiths.

The sun would catch an entire patch of trees, all displaying the same hue – sometimes entirely red, sometimes yellow, sometime golden brown. And of course the green never stopped. It depended on whether the trees were maple, oak, nut, fruit, willow, ash, birch, elm, or evergreen.

The fields, too, had begun to change. There were still bright green expanses of crops yet to be harvested. Then a field of, some might call it drab, but it was also beautiful – beige or tan or khaki – maybe earthen. Natural colors are so difficult to describe in words. I can imagine that it would be even more difficult to do with a paint brush. This field, I guessed, might have once been a corn field already harvested, with the corn for either food, fodder, or fuel; then the shocks cut to the ground, leaving the stubbles to be turned over in the spring and offer their nutrients back to the soil.

I occasionally came upon a field that resembled a patchwork quilt, where different crops had been grown in smaller areas, directly next to another one. A backdrop of evergreens at the horizon bordered this natural design and was a more than breathtaking sight.

As the time passed on into November, there were more and more trees that had accepted gracefully the usual but amazing process of showing their beautiful colors in preparation for shedding them for the winter.

Today I drove down a street in my College Park neighborhood. The same street that, two weeks ago had looked like I was driving through a grand arch of a great cathedral with colored stained glass windows on either side, now was lined with stately black trees, branches still reaching to the clear blue sky, each branch dividing out into smaller and smaller twigs. It was no less beautiful. It was part of the miraculous cycle that our Indiana weather presents to us regularly, faithfully, every year.

It makes me want to get out and beat the drums for helping to keep this planet green - and orange and red and brown and golden yellow and yes black and khaki.

I will be looking forward to more of this miraculous cycle when the snow covers these bare black branches, - then when that all melts away and the buds begin to pop out in the spring. And of course the summer months will bring more joy with lush green leaves and grass, and brightly colored flowers.

It is truly a testimony for diversity.





Indiana Jane