First days of seasons so often seem to miss their mark, promising either something that has already arrived or that may not appear for weeks. They masquerade as transitions when in reality, the transitions exist on a continuum, and that official “first day” merely marks the calendar’s progress. Yes, there is the lengthening or shortening that is most dramatic on an equinox, but things don’t necessarily feel different.
Why, then, do we go to so much trouble to note the hour and minute that one season slips into the next? Perhaps it is simply because we need to measure the days in some way. For quite a few years, I measured them with my students by writing haiku. But this isn’t about the haiku; it’s about the images and music this first day of fall calls to mind for me.
The poems we wrote were inspired by painter and experimental filmmaker Jeff Scher’s “The Shadow’s Dream.” Originally featured in 2009 in The New York Times, the video is also on his Vimeo site, and I’ve linked there because he has so much that is worth exploring.
As Scher writes in explanation of this work, “Fall’s later sunrises bring longer shadows to the morning rush hour. On any particularly sunny morning, the shadows of people in the city seem to constitute a fleeting parallel universe at our feet.”
The shadows may by ephemeral, but the people casting them are real. Perhaps as we progress further into a time of uncertainty–with regard to society, politics, climate, a pandemic–close attention to shadows can offer more than insight into our orbit of the sun.
Sher continues, “Shadows are also a great unifier. There is no ethnicity, just humans, going about their business… The world of shadows is a kind of link to other times and all the shadows of man before us, flickering past with drama and vigor before vanishing forever without a trace.”
Certainly, this year, I’m more attuned to the figurative rather than literal interpretation of shadows. Recognizing shared humanity and the worthiness of every individual may keep our shadows–and their dreams–from blurring into unrecognizable darkness.