Autumn – the beautiful denouement

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Denouement is a French word that literally means the action of untying, from a verb meaning to untie. Noun: the outcome of a complex sequence of events

The leaves have untied themselves from the trees, or perhaps they were gently let go.  Generously covering the garden beds and the forest floor, they color the world in tones of gold, orange, rust, and brown while returning the nutrients to the earth in an ancient process of release, decay and regeneration.

Autumn was a long languorous process, with its first hesitant steps in September proceeding through stages of leaf color change and ultimate descent to the earth.

Every day, the stroll through the garden was different. The early morning sun could cast fiery color and deep shadows or it could be filtered through a gentle mist that saturated the leaves and enhanced the rich range of autumnal color.

At last the storms and winds prevailed and the fall of leaves over a few days and weeks was spectacular. I was able to capture some of the magical moments of this process in video.

You may be in the southern continents where spring is now emerging, or in a tropical zone where there is no autumn. The earth is a wide and wonderful place and I have been privileged to see much of it in person. Yet, there is something about autumn in the northern continents that tugs at my heart, the dramatic shift in color and the subtle earthy scents of a world renewed by the long arc of seasonal change. Wherever you are on this planet, I hope that you can savor the beauty and sweetness of denouement, the end of one season and the beginning of another.

All photos and text ©2025 Lynn Emberg Purse except where noted.

 

12 thoughts on “Autumn – the beautiful denouement”

  2. Beautiful images (and video!). Always nice to see Pixie make an appearance, or several.

    Autumn was more or less on time in Delaware this year; by the end of the first week of November, essentially all of the leaves were down. But in northeast Illinois…latest I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been viewing it in one form or another here since the early 1970s). I returned to the Chicago area on November 15, and I’m not sure half of the leaves were down at that time, which is unheard of in these parts.

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    • How interesting that autumn was so different in Delaware and Illinois, Kerry. This year was a very long autumn in SW Pa – it began in late September and only now in late November have most of the leaves fallen, though it is still mild and a few leaves remain on the trees. At this point, I only expect the unexpected in terms of weather events. And Pixie thanks you for your kind words. 🙂

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  3. Well done, as always. While it’s common to see pictures of colorful leaves on trees and then those leaves fallen, we less often see the in-between phase of the falling, as we did in a portion of your video.

    This year we got to experience your kind of autumn several times, most notably in the mountains of Utah, Nevada, and California last month, and then lesserly (I’ve coined a word) in far eastern Oklahoma two weeks ago.

    Enjoy the season of holidays that’s upon us.

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    • I rather like that word “lesserly” Steve – it could be very useful! I do love shooting video for that exact reason – photos and words never quite capture the cascade of movement in the garden that I see every day. So glad you got to experience autumn in the mountains, it is a glorious event.

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