There is beauty in autumn. And no, this time I don’t mean the vivid colors that some trees and plants use to herald their demise. I mean the quiet beauty of transition.

The beauty of a graceful exit.

I love the lines of the bare trees of winter, that is no secret. But as this fall has progressed, I’ve enjoyed the emerging lines which are accentuated with the receding leaves. Some leaves go out in a blaze of glory, falling from the tree en mass in their bright colors, still flexible and pliant until days on the ground. One day the tree is full, the next it is bare. It’s startling. But other leaves age in place, slowly and quietly making their transition, losing a bit of themselves here and there with a whisper until one day they are all gone.

It’s these leaves I’m noticing. They speak to me of tenacity. Of a will to continue, even with the inevitability of the end. And wow, aren’t they beautiful? In their demise, they are so graceful. They accentuate the beauty of the bare tree beneath, rather than covering it, as the summer leaves do. It’s almost as if this is their finest hour, their greatest contribution. This is when the tree and leaf are truly one. They tell me that a tree is not either/or, bare or full, it’s both. I can see both seasons, appreciate both, together in this brief moment. These leaves chastise me in my wishing for one or the other; in my desire to hurry or slow time. They remind me there is only this moment. Can I not see?

This time, as any other, I look to the trees for lessons. This season’s lesson for me: How to appreciate the transition. Regardless of what is coming, it can be approached and experienced in the moment, with grace.

“Graceful” is a word that keeps coming to me, over and over, to describe the lines that I want to capture in my photographs. The way I want to live my life. Lately, I see grace all the time in the lines around me, whether it’s in the trees or the sand or extension of a human hand. This month it’s been especially clear to me in the transition of the seasons, as my Photo-Heart Connection expresses. It seems so dramatic to say this, but I ache for the beauty of it all. I do. I am deeply touched by the grace I see in the face of inevitability. I want to have that kind of stoic strength in my approach to the transitions of life. I observe it, I photograph it, and I know I fall short. But I keep going, hanging on, working toward that kind of being. I wonder: Do you have to first see, before you can be?

What is your Photo-Heart Connection this month? Do you see deep longings or light playfulness in your photographs? Your heart is telling you something. Explore the message. Share it with us here.