Field notes from October

In October, we accept summer’s death for the first time. August brings the first sense of loss, which is then offset by September’s warm days, making us forget that nature is preparing for its final act before it marches onto death. 

Nature burns with fiery leaves in October, turning the landscape into a red velvet rug. But between the coloured leaves, darkness starts eating away at the light at a faster pace. And in that darkness, the ghosts start their low, dull monologues as the wind brushes against the leaves. Their breath makes the air cold and misty, giving it a rotten, earthy smell. The Sun, acknowledging that it has played its part, begins to fade and settles into a pale gold behind the mountains. 

The moon takes the spotlight for the final act. October’s full moon, the Hunter’s Moon, was also the Harvest Moon and the first supermoon in 2025. On October 6, the moon appeared bigger, brighter, and more radiant than a typical full moon. This happens because the moon reaches its closest point in its orbit to the Earth. We’re closest to the light in darkness. Death is the birth of something new. 

I was born in October. To me, this month feels like the beginning of something new. It’s the peak of the year. It’s the month when I begin to feel the weight of my existence. Or rather, that my existence should have some weight. It’s the month where every year, I hope that I’ll have the strength to live more, live better, live more deeply. I look for the meaning of life, hoping that that meaning will last at least a year, until next October, when I find new meaning again. And I hope I’ll keep finding new meanings until the end, or until the new beginning. 

Supermoon. Harvest Moon. The Hunter’s Moon. Blood moon. Red. The colour of life, love, passion, violence, evil itself. The thought of it makes you feel a bit unsettled, and the blood rushes through you. Hunting for survival is nearly unimaginable. We’re past that animalistic side of us, or so we hope, so we like to believe. You imagine the scavenging deer under the full moon, but you can’t bring yourself to hunt them. You’re haunted by them. 

As nature gives us the final act in October, we discover the darkness within. Under the sanguine moon, facing the velvet red mountain, and walking on crunchy autumn leaves, we feel the darkness rising inside us. For better or worse, it’s time to go inside ourselves, make a nest inside that darkness. Perhaps, it is time to take a deep breath and listen to the old brag of our hearts, as Sylvia Plath put it. 

Now, on November’s footsteps, the branches of the trees begin to look more and more like skeleton hands. It’s five o’clock, the Sun set ten minutes ago. I light a candle to cherish the light gone. I do it to remember once more the colours of October, the earthy smell, the lush forests, the urge to relearn the name of every tree, to call them by their names, to know which birds stay behind for the cold winter and which ones are gone. And to know that those which stay behind do live to experience the spring bloom again.