Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Autumn again

Last night, as I walked through the chilly rain from a meeting to my car, I thought it really felt like Autumn for the first time this year.
Something, a combination of the nearly deserted Flemington streets, the wet leaves on the ground, the chill and the smell in the air, made it real. The feeling always triggers a sense of what, for lack of a better word, I'll call nostalgia.
Autumn always awakens a mood in me that, although strange and wild, is not at all unpleasant. I think it's really my favorite time of year.
I was born in November, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
I wonder if there is anything to the notion of astrology after all. Maybe not so much the idea that the alignment of the stars affects our temperaments so much as the time of year. Maybe it's the climate, the length of days and the particular quality of light in those first months, while the early neural connections are forming, that affects who we are, at least in part, for the rest of our lives.
Certainly, I have at least some of the characteristics that are supposed to be typical to my sign, Scorpio.
Why not? I've read that cognitive psychologists believe infants may be synasthetic, that is, their senses may be blended together. Touch and sight, smell and sound and taste may not be clearly differentiated for a while. If that's true, that how could the weather not have an effect?
If the climate in those formative months affects personality, then, how does the change in climate change it? It seems, at least here, that winter starts later than it used to, although the leaves have already turned in many spots. If December is the new November, will Saggitarius be the new Scorpio?
Who knows, but it's an interesting thing to think about.