The comparison of the life of a man to that of the season’s of nature is an old literary device. It quite probably dates back farther than that great time marker of English literature, Shakespeare, though he did it most memorably so very many times. Even the composer Vivaldi used the changes in nature and man as the basis for his most famous Baroque composition, "The Four Seasons." The fact that it is so frequently used as a tool for composing one’s thoughts gives credence to its accuracy and reason for its recurrent application. With full knowledge that as the simile has been applied for time immemorial, it is unlikely that I will be able to make any significant or novel observations. Nevertheless, I beg your indulgence with this meager attempt at waxing philosophic.

Indeed, when most think of the seasons of nature and the passages of their own life, the similarities are, more or less, quite striking. In traditional usage, childhood is typically "spring," the teenage and early adulthood are "summer," late adulthood and middle age are "fall" and "winter" is the late middle life and aged days of that single life. It is, when meticulously examined, quite symmetrical and balanced. To most, it makes such good sense. Certainly, it does to me as I look over the "seasons" of my life.

When I think of "spring," I think of things in nature being born and "starting fresh." Spring is typically the time of the most rapid growth. Change is rapid. Life is vigorous and playful if a bit clumsy. New patterns emerge, often in the most unlikely and previously barren settings, and all is a bit chaotic and pell-mell. Summer is a continuation of spring in that growth is sustained though, usually in nature, at slightly slower rate. If spring is dominated by growth, summer is change, often appearing in surprising and dramatic ways. Flowers bloom here; thorns appear there. We begin to see, if we look closely and with an eye to design, clearly the intent of the growth. We see the metamorphosis as purposeful and directed. The fall brings finality of intent. We see how the climate and the unique habitat has modified the development: plants lean toward the greatest sunlight, moss grows on the north-facing sides of trees.

As new growth reaches maturation, God’s intended design becomes apparent and the ultimate nexus of form and function of the new creation shows itself. Also, in fall, we begin to see new changes, directed for the future of the organism. Thus, preparations are made in nature to propagate ("going to seed") or, at the least, protect the organism from the hazards of the winter ahead. Winter becomes, thus, a time of preservation and protections, with the hope of survival. If plans are incomplete or the hazards too great or continuation is not in The Plan, winter becomes the final season of life.

One only need to look at trees for the similarities in nature with the lives of man. The true strength of man, as with the strength of trees, lies in the root system. When the storm winds blow - whether in nature or in the lives of man - those with the deepest and most extensive root systems are the ones most likely to survive. Just as the tree with lush foliage and shallow roots easily tumbles in the first storm, the lives of man which are weighted with materialistic pursuits and self-aggrandizement and devoid of attention to moral and spiritual roots are the ones which topple when "the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" is, invariably, visited upon them. Without sufficient grounding, lives - as with trees - fall. The soil in which the tree stands also factors in its strength against the tumult; just so with man. The sandy soil of the lives without reverence and lacking a sense of tradition (Burke’s thread that bind those living with those dead and those yet born) lend scant support when life’s trials swirl about us.

Of course, there are also some differences between man and nature. Young saplings are more supple and bend effortlessly in the same breeze that causes older, more brittle trees to collapse. Conversely, men in the winter of their lives often have a stronger resistance, lacking in the young, to storms in life. The key that separates the older man from the aged tree is the durability lent to him by experience. Men have what trees lack: the steel core of wisdom earned from a life well lived.

Experience, when assimilated into the mental "trunk" of man and anchored with well-seated rootage, can serve a man lacking the suppleness of youth to good advantage. When the howling gusts that tear through the forest of mankind face the man so galvanized and well-seated, their destructive force is exponentially attenuated. The prepared man may briefly bend but is not bowed. Men of similar years and accompanying brittleness who lack firm grounding or the fortification of sagacity may snap or even crumple to dust. Yet he who has prepared spiritually and with resoluteness of will can withstand the fierceness of adversity.

Age, thus, sacrifices physical pliability for mental strength. Though events about him may erode the soil and tragedy may shake his limbs, the man who has attended throughout his younger days to build his storehouse of faith in tradition, appreciation of the gifts of the past and recognition of his place in the world will stand strong. The more brutal and harsh the climate may grow about him, the prepared man, attentive to his own frailties and capabilities can, often enough, outlast the fictile youth who are generally devoid of these hidden gifts of age.

The analogies do not end in the plant world. The only thing "smarter than a fox" is an old fox. He is the one who playfully chased unobtainable prey as an adolescent and young adult, succeeding in only exhausting himself and becoming even more hungry. He is the one who ate any and everything that jumped, ran or simply looked edible in that same period of life and suffered through and survived the distress bad choices wrecked on his body. He learned that if he slept out in the open, he ran the risk of being attacked by other creatures of his forest. In the final tally, he learned what was to be reasonably obtained and was not going to make him sick or, possibly, kill him. He learned snakes were bad, mice were good. Experience, well learned and equally well remembered and applied, is nature and man’s best teacher. Patrick Henry may have been the first (but, certainly, not the last) to declare that "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience." It is, indeed, the luminance that guides any man with hard-won wisdom.

Nature, as life, can be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Thomas Hobbes wrote this description in 1651 and little, if anything, has changed since. Nature, for all living within it including man, remains a harsh mistress. She demands much and exacts a painful and sometimes lethal price for failing to adequately respect her powers and her immutable laws. The young seldom do - believing, as the young are ere to do, that they are invincible and not subject to the principles of the world. In the winter of life, however, one begins to see nature for what she truly is: a pass or fail test. And we must all take it, sooner or later. Those who allow experience to light their path are the ones most likely to pass the test.

Those who continue as kittens, chasing their tails and jumping for butterflies over their heads for their entire lives are doomed to fail in life. Robinson Jeffers said: "Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us." We seem to feign shock and dismay when cruelty or tragedy befall us. We cry out: "Why me?" The answer, of course, is: "Why not you?" As soon as we accept that nature (and man) are cruel, we can best plan and watch for the traps both nature and man set for us. One of the true and often innumerable pleasures of age is that we know, for the most part, what and where the traps lie.

Nature and time might be pitiless with our bodies but, fortunately, they allow us to learn from our mistakes and preserve intact the often-painful (but educational) recollections of man’s past follies. Woe unto the man who fails to heed the past for, as Santayana warned us, they are doomed to repeat it at their peril.