Fall Sunday: Slow Down and Breathe

27 Oct Fall Sunday: Slow Down and Breathe

I don’t watch TV much. I don’t really watch TV at all—we don’t have a cable or satellite account, so the only programs I see are on the  iPad, the occasional series that was popular enough to replay on Netflix or YouTube snippets of Jon Stewart’s best rants. I don’t know why “Orange is the New Black” or if the “Mad Men” are actually crazy or just very angry. It’s a conscious decision. I don’t really have time for TV. Just like everyone else, I’m already too busy, and I don’t want to get sucked into the media vortex.

But I made an exception for “Cosmos.” This is the re-imagining of the old Carl Sagan “Cosmos” series (which aired in the 80s)  and it stars my hero, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. And it was produced and funded by animator/voice talent Seth McFarlane, so the bonus is that parts of the show are animated, meaning that even my 4- and 5-year-olds will watch it with me. Fun for the whole family, right? Entertaining and educational. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the screen time, at least until the penultimate episode (“The World Set Free”) where Tyson tackles the issue of climate change. That episode sealed the deal, changing me from a viewer to a fan. My obsession with “Cosmos” was complete.

It wasn’t the climate change case Tyson presented that did it, as brilliant and subtle as it was. It was something much smaller, just one of the facts he mentioned as he was making a bigger point. The Earth breathes, he said. It draws in one large breath in the spring, when all the vegetation and trees suck in the CO2, and it makes a long, slow exhalation each fall as plants and leaves decay and decompose. The same thing happens in the southern hemisphere, only at the opposite time of year, and with a less grand effect, since the southern hemisphere has less land mass and more ocean. The point Tyson was making was a larger one, about the natural fluctuations of carbon in the atmosphere, how delicate the balance is, and how crucial it is for humans to stop releasing the carbon trapped in the earth’s crust into the air. But I was still stuck on one thing: The Earth breathes.

I’ve always wondered why I loved fall so much, and now I know. All summer long it feels like one long inhale, like I’m holding my breath. Spring starts out pleasantly enough, but summer is insanely busy and exciting, a nonstop whirlwind of activity. And then finally fall comes, and it all slows down, like one long, slow exhale. There is something innately relaxing and beautiful about fall. It’s the meditative respiration cycle of the Earth. The Earth breathes. Time to sit back, watch “Cosmos” with the kids, and unwind. Thank you Neil, thank you autumn, thank you Earth. Fall is just what we all needed.