Season of gorgeous death

All that you touch 

You Change.

All that you Change

Changes You

The only lasting truth 

Is Change.

God 

Is Change.

That's Octavia Butler, of course.

As wind,

As water,

As fire,

As life,

God

Is both creative and destructive,

Demanding an yielding

Sculptor and clay.

God is Infinite Potential:

God is Change.

Your teachers

Are all around you.

All that you perceive,

All that you experience,

All that is given to you, 

Or taken from you,

All that you love or hate,

Need or fear

Will teach you --

If you will learn.

God is your first

and your last teacher.

God is your harshest teacher:

subtle,

demanding.

Learn or die.

I love Death, so I don't hear this last bit as an invitation to escape her. I hear it as a declaration of fact: if you try to hold change still, you will lose touch with what is most alive. 

Thank you, plants. Thank you, season of gorgeous death. Thank you, Ms Butler. I bow to the lessons.