November is the saddest of months.  With all due respect to T.S. Eliot, November is sadder than April because the latter, however seemingly cruel, gives way to the green and warmth of Spring; life returns and revives, everything seems new and hopeful again.  November engenders more of a sense of loss, here in the mountains of Northwestern Massachusetts at least.  The leaves are gone, the bright reds and yellows of October have given way to duller browns and grays.  The air is chill, but not cold enough to bring forth a white "forgetful snow."  Rather, a chilly rain is more common, falling from a steely, sunless sky. 

    With no leaves on the trees, we can see right through the forests.  The deer cannot hide, vulnerable now to hunters and shotguns.  We can see straight through ourselves as well.  There is less of a happy veneer to shelter us from our unhappy thoughts.  Or, maybe it’s just me; I have more to be sad about these days. 

     And what is in prospect?  Just more cold, and darker nights.  I have written before about our apparent fear of the Winter Solstice.  We’re not quite there yet, but the darkness is more palpable.  It closes in earlier in the day, limiting our vision, constraining our possibilities. 

    I am not a sad person by nature and personality.  I try to be optimistic.  My generally positive view of the world shapes my experience of November and my reading of Taoism as well.   So, I find a certain solace in this passage from Chuang Tzu (19):

Joy and anger, sorrow and delight, hope and regret, doubt and ardor, diffidence and abandon, candor and reserve: it’s all music rising out of the emptiness, mushrooms appearing out of mist.  Day and night come and go, but who knows where it all begins.  It is! If just is! If you understand this day in and day out, you inhabit the very source of it all.

      November is; it just is.  Its darkness and cold will flood in, but then recede.  April, and May, and summer, will come again.