Cycles of Life Compared to Events in the Natural World

We associate the stages of human life and our emotional states with natural phenomena, such as day and night and the seasons because we can see comparisons between what we experience during our lifetime and the events that take place in the natural world around us.

The most common comparison is made between a person's life span and the seasons of the year. Spring, with its budding flowers and eggs ready to hatch usually equates to childhood and new beginnings. Summer, pictured as sunshine and plants fully grown is compared to adulthood and a growing maturity. Autumn, with plant life dying off and glorious in its changing colors is our later life and a time of looking back. Winter, cold and dark, is old age and decline.

A lot of writers, including William Shakespeare, have compared a period in the human life span to a time of the year. In "That Time of Year" Shakespeare compares the person in the poem to late Fall. He says that you can "see" the time of year in him. He is comparing the decline of older age to the time of year when most of the leaves are already off the trees, and the birds have gone. The speaker seems to be stating that he is on the verge of the Winter of his life and is looking ahead to the time when he will be on his deathbed.

In the poem, "October, 1954," Kay Boyle compares her age to the month of October. She is calling out to the girl she used to be, to come and tell them that she is still the person that she once was, even though she, like the leaves she describes, has changed with time. I felt, after reading the poem a couple of times, that she wanted nothing more than to take off and run through the fallen leaves, just as she had done in her youth. But she fears that anyone observing her would say "that a witch had passed by" if she were to actually do it.

Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" is meant to bring clear mental images and particular emotions to its listeners. He uses the texture of the music to make us see in our mind's eye the lightness of spring, the power of a thunderstorm in summer, or the dreariness of a gray, cold, winter day. If you have a good imagination, while you are listening to this music you may smell the fresh, clean summer air after the storm has passed, or you might feel the need for a warm fire as the cold winter winds blow through the Winter concerto.

There are many poems, stories, plays, and music in which our lives are in some way compared to the seasons we see around us. We recognize the likeness of our changing lives to the changes we see taking place in the natural world, we recognize the cycles of nature, and it makes sense to me that humanity would write, sing, talk or create great art that speaks of the comparisons we note.