I drag my rake across the dirt, scratching the dusty brown yard. Tiny acorns crunch under my shoe, they grind to an ochre dust. I spy little chicken footprints cross-hatched in the gold.

Everything is worn down to sediment – Summer’s remains. All green freshness is gone.

The hens are losing their feathers, experiencing what is called a molt. They shake off little nests of soft, creamy feathers by the kitchen door, wistful gifts that float on the breeze and gather beneath the shrubs.

Their bodies are lean and bleached looking, their combs are a faded pink, their tail feathers are stubs.They seem a little embarrassed by this turn of events, like they’ve been caught out in their underwear.

This is the season of cold, exposed skin, wrinkles and vulnerability. When we lay Summer’s hopes on the burn pile and let gravity and the cold air leaven our spirits.

This is the season of cold skin, wrinkles and vulnerability.

A chickens’ molt serves a purpose – to slough off the old feathers filled with dirt and mites, and to have a fresh, attractive set. Natures’s way of regenerating.

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It seems to me that some of my hardest periods in life have been like molts, of sorts.

Adolescence, pregnancy, menopause – major upheavals of hormones and bodily changes where I did not feel like myself at all. Transitions – times of anxiety, insecurity. Dramatic plumage fails.

Uncertainty about what will be.

When I reflect on these cycles within me and within this microcosm of my backyard, it doesn’t take much to recognize that what is fresh and young will give way. Hair loses pigment, dermis loses elasticity, sebum oils dry up.

But, like my hens, there is that new growth prickling beneath the tender skin.

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During the pandemic, the Baptist church across the street drew a large labyrinth in their parking lot – a spray-painted circular path for passersby-by to meander.

The other day I saw a child meticulously navigate the spiral, one tiny shoeprint at a time. And when he reached the center, he yelled out to his dad “Now what?”

Yes indeed, now what?

The life cycle spirals of our days that become months that become years – it is a scroll of a story. We think we know the beginning and the end, but it is a question.

Worm casts, chicken droppings, loam and skin – they form a crust of fertile cake out of nothing at all. Just when we think something is at the marrow, it lays down another skin of hope.

We backtrack through the labyrinth.

And here, in the midst of a chicken molt, there is an itching, uncomfortable yearning for a cluck of reassurance.

Where are we going?

And as I rake, the hens cackle and complain, and I get it. I’m not one hundred percent sure either.

I just hope that the waiting and uncertainty won’t be for nothing and that this season’s glossy, new plumage will arrive soon.

Oh, and some eggs would be great too, always the eggs.