We introduced reading the season through your body back in
section 1.1, and reading it before stepping outside in section 1.2.
This section goes a little deeper into what that actually
involves, now that we've spent several topics building
a fuller picture of how seasons work ecologically.

Smell often shifts before visible change does — the particular
mineral smell of thawing ground in early spring, the green,
almost sweet smell of growth accelerating in late spring,
the dry, slightly dusty smell of late summer ground.
These smells often arrive days or weeks before the corresponding
visible changes in plants.

Beyond simply how many daylight hours there are, the quality
of light shifts noticeably through transitions — the sharp,
low, golden light of early spring is different from the
flatter, hazier light of midsummer, which is different again
from the clear, cold light of autumn.

Many people notice shifts in their own energy, appetite, or mood
that track seasonal transitions — a restlessness in early spring,
a heaviness as autumn deepens. This isn't separate from plant
seasonality. You and the plants around you are responding to
many of the same underlying signals.

Birdsong increasing as migratory species return, the first
insects becoming audible, the particular quiet of a frozen
winter landscape — sound is one of the more reliable transition
markers, and one that doesn't require you to be looking
in any particular direction to notice.