What We Can Learn from September's Asters

The summer flowers in the field have begun to brown, the poppies are all but gone, and the daisies and clover are but a memory from what feels like another life. The nights are cool now, dipping below fifty degrees Fahrenheit here in the hills of Vermont, and with that chill comes the gentle fade. Walk down the road or into the fields after the children have been put to sleep and you will sense it, the quiet withdrawal of the summer things. This fade-time makes way for new flowers, not least of which is the aster who has been quietly binding her time to steal center stage.

Yes, there is the goldenrod that comes in mid-August and reaches its golden peak this time of year. There is the stalky vervain appearing as though it were from an alien plane or fairy realm. The joe pye weed makes a towering mockery of the shorter milkweed by the roadside. The thistles too bloom and puff, their flowers and their down both a spectacle worth witnessing. Amid them all however is the purple aster, frothing up like sea foam in the ditches and low places, at the bases of stone walls and in the shade of larger shrubs. There are no flowers quite like it right now, with its purple petals and bright yellow center, each head bundled near another in such a way that it truly does evoke sea foam, smoke, or something equally ethereal. They are fine and airy, equipped with neither the robust and generous form of the black eyed Susans nor the sheer plurality of the goldenrod.

It is almost as if they have been lying in wait for their opportune time, for when the stage has been cleared of the larger and bolder competitors.

There may be a lesson here for us too here in the waning fade-days of September: it is not always our time.

I laughed the other day when I called some service on which I rely and was met immediately with the familiar recorded apology “We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes.” I laughed because I could not remember a time when this company did not have “higher than normal call volumes”. It caused me to reflect on how our contemporary culture demands that we are always on, always at 100%, ever grinding and producing more and more. Work any white color job for a year and you will hear a manager darkly joke “Sure, we can focus on that project when we slow down and have some quiet time,” knowing full well that day will never come. The wounded modern world knows no seasons, no rhythms of good green work and needed golden rest. There is only the long, perpetual grey march of modernity.

The aster knows better than this, however.

It rests through the languid June romance, through the heady July craze, and only begins to think about its debut when August’s golden light begins to wane. Those summer months are full of too many loud characters, too many flamboyant personalities that would outshine its gentle offerings. It waits until all the red bombast and orange bluster passes, when the shouts from the swimming hole have quieted, and the sun is not so mad with power. It is a flower for cooler days and clearer nights, for when the bees need what the dandelion or goldenrod cannot offer, for children to daydream of oceans as they see it growing out their schoolhouse window.

Ultimately, the aster teaches us that it is not always our time to bloom, not always our time to be seen or heard. Sometimes the stage is too crowded, the light too harsh, the noise too great. Sometimes the wisest and most beautiful thing we can do is hold back, gather strength quietly in the bough dappled light, and wait until the moment is right. The world would have us believe we must always be on, always producing, always shouting to be noticed, but the aster knows better. Perhaps we, too, must learn that there are seasons meant for us, and seasons meant for others. If you feel overlooked, weary, or pressed into the endless march of always doing something, take a breath and remember: it may simply not yet be your time. Your hour will come when the field is ready, when the air is clear, when your particular shade of beauty is needed and appreciated most.

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