While I was on vacation in Ouray, CO, I was browsing in a local bookstore on the main drag. It’s the kind of place where one might duck in during an afternoon rainstorm and end up staying for hours.

I picked up a book of photographs of the San Juan mountains, where Ouray is located, and opened up to a page of a fall scene. It reminded me of one of the last times I visited my friend, Ilene, at her home in the foothills outside of Denver, just before she died of ALS. It was the end of September and like the photograph in front of me, the aspen leaves had turned a golden yellow, creating streaks across the mountain landscape.

Opposite the photograph was this quote from John Muir:

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

I was startled by the words, as it fit with what Ilene believed about death. In one of our conversations, Ilene wondered why the transition of death is not as celebrated as the transition of birth. For her, death was not something to be feared or dreaded, but rather one more transition in the long journey of the soul. As we move into the fall season, I’ll be pondering John Muir’s words.