We signed the Arrington contract in June with easy agreement and commitment. Who would have thought that the Planning Commission would consider the requirements until September?

So our dreams of summer, hikes, shorts, heather patches, and splashes were replaced by a mild Tennessee fall. However, Tennessee Fall is a wonderful time to discover and a time to pause and reflect. This is the time to rest and recover energy.

This is the time to align the rhythms, as the forces slow and offer glimpses to mortals. Because if you love Tennessee, you must love its Seasons: the intensity of Summer with steam and sweat, whose bountiful fruit it will bear; its Spring whose evening whispers and faint blossoms herald renewal and awakening; the glorious color of Autumn, whose receding fluid and liquid do not witness death, but merely fade into rest and restoration; and yes, the Winter whose purpose lays bare…revealing detail and relief, its rigid frame and sleeping self, the austere profile of lofty cliffs, once hidden by Summer’s cedar and vines, now reveal its silent message, chiselled by the Wind-washed, Rain-washed, and Sun-baked. Yes, winter is a wonderful season to discover Cedar Grove.

With White Christmas and frosty nights, normal shapes call for an extra dimension. The snow-covered forests glow with light and magic. They call with secrets and winter life and their own winter sound. It’s so quiet that every sound is magnified, a soft echo as your boots cut through the snow and ice; a little creaking when the branches feel the weight and the wind when it breaks its layer of ice.

There is a different sound when the ground does not reverberate, and the thousands of leaves that absorb with their softness and redirection… are absent. there is no resistance to our traveling sound waves, but somehow everything is much, much quieter. You are in the sanctuary this season.a time of reflection and lively silence.

Only those who must, venture out; birds and squirrels reproduce by the same seed. In fact, time has decelerate. The sound and the echo invite you to live each moment a little more. The cold insists that you suspend some physical senses. Now we are allowed to witness how light meets intentions, and thought floats above, and hibernation finds support in the sleeping forest, the forest located in Cedar Grove.