Keeping nature around us reminds us of the rhythm of the seasons.

Even if we can’t leave the house, nature can come to us. With each passing season my mother decorated a small table in our house’s entryway. It featured books or a painting reflecting the time of year, like mushrooms, say, in early autumn. Or it would have tall branches in springtime with home-decorated Easter eggs. Large pumpkins around Halloween. An enormous wreath of evergreens and holly in December. Today, rather than a nature table my husband arranges flowers and greens: pink ranunculus, white peonies, tall grasses, sweet peas. They too announce the passing rhythm of the seasons. I’ve found that a simple handpicked bouquet can infuse us with what the Scottish writer Richard Holloway describes as “the sense many of us can’t quite shake off, that though it does not explain itself, nevertheless the universe seems to have known we were coming.” That somehow we belong to the universe, that witnessing nature’s beauty is a homecoming, bringing a sense of completion and sureness to our lives. (Location 1725)