By Kate Hawkes September 7, 2011 - 2:28pm

I live in Arizona, sort of in the middle, and it is, well, pretty darned hot! I usually get up by 5.15am and go down to feed the horses. All summer that was hardly early enough and I wore shorts in the hot early morning sun! Lately it has been dark when the alarm goes off, and I am wearing jeans again.

I also manage to make it out for a 30-40 minute run most mornings, before it is way too hot. It is always a bit of a risk - 2 minutes too late and that last 5 minutes are suffocating. I notice the last few mornings that I can leave later, run longer and it is not so bad...

There is a softness in the air, a lightness in the breeze that has been missing over the month of August. Sitting out in the garden in between feeding the horses/cleaning yards and leaving for that run, drinking coffee, we now have to search for the sun. It was always blazing down in the same part of the garden. I'd be already sweating before I Ieft to run. Now it has moved across the sky and aims its heat rays from just behind the house across from us.

The night is no longer wrapped in its own blanket, that mantle of heat that overcame whatever attempts I made to keep my body light and cool. (I avoid air conditioning if possible but the combination of unrelenting deep-heavy heat and dogs barking all night through the open window has sometimes led to flicking that switch!) No, lately, it has been quite pleasant and even the dogs seem to have stopped complaining all night.

The tarantulas have appeared, moving ponderously and with arachnid dignity down the path. (I hasten them away from the dogs who have no respect.) Odd little flowers are appearing in the remnant green of the garden, and the giant agave has stopped sending down the cascade of spent flowers.

Mostly I notice the sky - clouds bringing their variety to the morning and night sky. They take longer to burn away immediately (if the do appear) and one day over the weekend not at all. We went for a 3 hour hike in the morning and barely a tinge of redness that evening. The sky tells me that summer is indeed almost over.

I always feel a little melancholy around this time. The air is fresher yes, the mornings cooler for sure, but the days are definitely shorter and the promise of the cold and dark is less a memory and more fact.

Fall whispers to me, ‘Summer is almost over, winter is on the way. Are you ready?’ I turn my head into the sun, run a little longer so that I am really hot, try to ignore the majestic skies. But she says, ‘Don't resist. It will be beautiful. Don't be sad, relax. Lean into the blessings of the darker cooler season.’

It is natures’ way of realigning us to our inner power after the outgoing activities of the summer. For a girl such as me it is essential to be slowed down a little, brought indoors, offered time to be quiet, internal.

So while I am a little sad I have to admit to also being excited about the coming season and know that I will mange the cold and the dark. My body will enjoy the change of temperature, my mind will stop resisting and my spirit will rise in different ways. Welcome to the Fall.