Leaves Don’t Change Color, They Reveal It
What season are you in?
I had never experienced Fall before coming to the United States. One day, walking across the University of Arkansas campus, I stopped. The trees were glowing, burnt orange, mustard yellow, and deep red. A gentle breeze shook the leaves, and for a moment, everything felt still. I found myself asking a simple question:
Why do trees change color?
We cycle through spring, summer, fall, and winter just buzzing about our lives, not necessarily stopping to ponder the meaning of it all. What is the meaning of the season and the time of transition from one to the other, literally and figuratively? Personally, my favorite time of the year is Fall.
In Fall, the days are not so long, the summer heat is in the rearview mirror, the temperature is just right, and the leaves are the most beautiful blend of colors.
The answer is quite poetic, in my opinion. Without getting too technical, the green color we see isn't from a stable pigment, meaning it breaks down easily. This pigment is called chlorophyll. It is essential because trees need it to make food and oxygen through photosynthesis.
During summer, the tree keeps producing more chlorophyll to replace the pigments that have broken down. When the days start to shorten and the temperature begins to drop, the deciduous trees say, “Maybe making this pigment is not the best idea right now.”
Side note: Deciduous comes from the word decidere, which means to fall down or to fall off. This is exactly what happens to the leaves of deciduous trees during fall. They fall off.
These deciduous trees realize that their environment is changing, so they must change as well. They hunker down and conserve their energy for the season that is more suitable for growth. They shed the weight of the leaves for winter and wait for the spring.
During that time of shutting down, the green fades, not because it was replaced, but because it was never the whole story. In the process, those orange and yellow pigments that have been in the background, silently assisting chlorophyll, become visible. In this way, the full truth looks like this:
The leaves aren’t changing another color.
The season is revealing what was there all along.
In nature, when the seasons change, we marvel at it, at least I do. I embrace the shift. I expect it even. We understand that seasons come and go for a reason and that each season looks different, even though some things remain the same. We accept it as beautiful, natural, and necessary. Nature doesn’t resist these changes. Nature understands seasons.
But when it comes to our own lives… we don’t always do the same.
Speaking from experience, change can feel unsettling. Especially the seasons that feel like winter. I’m talking about the times of loss, uncertainty, or waiting.
A contract ends. A job is lost. Love flees. The next steps are hazy.
In a season that is supposed to bring repose, we begin to question our worth in the silence. We feel stuck, or maybe some sense of shame, hurt, disappointment, or worthlessness. Against our will, we are forced to hunker down.
We can all admit that it’s hard to see the beauty while we’re in this season.
We are supposed to be fruitful, but is it sustainable to bear fruit all the time?
In the morning, we jump out of bed, and it’s go, go, go… every day, not a minute to rest. We move through periods of high productivity, feeling guilty to pause because we have “so much stuff to do.”
However, we must remember that rest is essential for good fruit. Rest can be deceiving because it may appear as if nothing is happening. However, behind closed doors, we are repairing, recovering, and quietly preparing for our next season.
As I type this, I feel like I’m in my season of fall. There is a vibrant, outward expression of new motherhood. It feels fiery orange, burning with new energy. My postdoc has come to an end. I’m forced to hunker down. The green is fading, but the vibrant colors that were there all along, the passion and the zeal for life, are shining through. This season has revealed my creativity.
I am writing my blogs again.
I am producing daily vlogs.
I am thinking of innovative ways to communicate science.
This is the same creativity that has helped me produce fruit during my growing season. This is the same creativity that has pushed me to invent a biodiversity index and structural complexity metrics from remote sensing products.
It never left.
So today, much like the tree, the potential for fruit is still there. Like a tree preparing for winter, I am drawing inward, holding on to what matters, and letting go of what no longer serves me. It feels natural, there is less resistance now.
But then again, I have spent a lot of time observing each season in nature and in life.
I understand seasons.
In this season, I am laughing more. I am dancing wildly with my daughter in the kitchen. I am moving slowly. I am present.
And this, too, is rest.
Beneath the surface, there is still life. There is still growth.
So maybe it’s true…sometimes growth looks like letting go.
Maybe growth isn’t always about becoming something new.
Maybe growth is about uncovering what’s been within you all along.
So… I only have one question:
What season are you in?