The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind
Grip (n): Stagehand. A member of the stage crew who moves and sets up pieces of scenery and props before a show and during scene changes.
I find myself somewhat melancholy this week, and suspect it is due to impending seasonal change. We have arrived at one of those times of the year when the “season” is neither fish nor fowl. Fall’s flamboyance has faded badly and winter’s crisp intricacy will not be in evidence for several days, if not weeks. For we are at a cusp: denouement of one season, while the orchestra is practicing the overture as warm-up to another.
I frequently wonder if the division of the calendar into four seasons is simply inadequate to deal with human interaction to the passage of time. Take Fall, for instance. Early and late Fall are wholly different sensory experiences, even if both deal with maturation and ultimate decay. A few short weeks ago, the color palette dominated everyone’s thoughts; today, notions of a warm house, a good book, and a quiet evening in are uppermost.
Seasonal cusps are always ill-defined and hard to recall from memory. It is safe to say that when we try to conjure them, we recall periods of generally unstable weather replete with nondescript tranches of wind and rain. While Shelley speaks of the wind, it is the rains of seasonal cusps that I recall best, even though they lack style and can be best remembered for what they aren’t. These are “not” rains: not the gentle, nurturing rains of Spring which shepherd life; not the breathtakingly abrupt cloudbursts of Summer which shock and delight; not the never-ending storms of Fall with their resultant, unavoidable soakings; not the thin rains of Winter with their dangerous icy aftermath. Instead, these are rains which combine awkwardly with variegated winds to produce uniformly awkward, fitful, spitting storms.
For seasonal cusps are periods of leavening, periods when the death of one season is simultaneously the yeast encouraging the growth of the next. And, perhaps, it is precisely this characterization which stamps seasonal cusps with a distinctive character of their own, as the grip conducting the change of scenery between star turns. So maybe there are really five seasons: the four we have named and loudly applaud, and one anonymous scene changer who periodically appears to clear the stage as the stars of the show perform their various exits and entrances.
This may also explain my melancholy of the moment. For Fall’s star turn was exceedingly fine this year, its execution faultless, colorful, memorable, and awe-inspiring. I regret its turn is at an end – even as I acknowledge the first, faint stirrings of anticipation for Winter’s delicate, but intricate, soliloquy.
You sure hit the nail on the head on this one! The popular “traditional four seasons” aesthetic – snow, flowers, heat, colorful leaves – does not give you a complete picture of the seasonal cycle.
I like to divide the year into eight based on the Neopagan holidays, with solstices, equinoxes, and the midpoints between called “cross-quarters.” That gives you a somewhat more complete view of the Year and all its different stops along the way. For example, late winter is treated as a separate season in its own right, as is late summer. One could also talk of a late-spring “dryadic season” between the flowers and the heat, as well as a late-fall “dormancy season” between the colorful leaves and the cold of deep winter.
Karl
Your comment makes sense to me. Somewhere on the blog there is a post talking about “Not-Spring” which is the period between deep winter (or at least as deep as it gets around here) and the full burst of Spring. Since the weather is a series of gradations, it is hard to divide it at all, but we wouldn’t be pleased without at least four seasons.
Thank you for the comment.
Gavin