“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”
~Elizabeth Lawrence
I feel fortunate to sit at a window seat in my work room which overlooks a near forest of tall oaks, hickory, sweet gum and pine trees. Even on a cloudy November day, I perch and view the autumn leaves, a few still stuck on the branches as if someone hung them there with sticky tape. I love the beauty of fall and could spend hours just watching nature in action. Trees with multiple shades of green, yellow, burnt orange and red just make my heart sing. Everywhere I look outside it is as if my eyes are strolling through a gallery of masterpiece paintings. Ah but the autumn season signifies change, a period of transition that prepares me for the upcoming winter season of deep rooting, hunkering down and cuddling up.
Although autumn leaves is the name of a famous jazz standard, the falling leaves of autumn provide an apt metaphor for such a liminal time. Perhaps it signals for me my desire for change because I have similar feelings about spring. I love trees with buds popping open like popcorn to an absolutely gorgeous new green. Spring green energizes me, stimulates me to move beyond the slower pace of winter. Budding growth spurs me to start new projects, plant seeds, flowers, cook less heavy stews and soups and prepare my palate for fresh veggies and salads. Perhaps it is the dramatic shifts of winter to spring and summer to fall that capture my attention since summer feels like a warmer spring and winter feels like a colder fall.
According to the Chinese medicine calendar that a friend shared with me some years ago, the seasons represent very meaningful symbols for the cycles of life. Fall is a time for letting go, winter a period for quiet germination and deep rooting, spring the season for new growth and summertime an opportunity to nurture that new growth signaled by warmer temperatures. The Chinese calendar also includes a late summer stage for harvesting (completing those projects initiated during spring). I can actively attune my life to the seasons or realize that I am sitting in or even stuck in one of them. Occasionally with my writing or sewing I notice a number of unfinished projects suggesting that I am unable to move from spring to late summer. I also struggle with symbolic winters lacking the patience needed to let ideas or plans germinate.
I have fond memories of autumn. I remember walking home from elementary school kicking the leaves scattered over the sidewalks. I liked to hear the crunch when I stepped through them. I also fondly recall the school assignment of selecting certain leaves and pressing them between wax paper so as to create a semi-permanent piece of art. When was the last time I did that? Unfortunately, most of the leaves in my yard right now are the soggy yellow and brown ones assaulted by numerous rain storms during the past few weeks.
I love to see the changing trees no matter where I live or visit. Of course the entire experience of admiring fall colors was accentuated when I lived in New England where the trees yielded a tapestry of breathtaking colors. I looked forward to the foliage reports urging me to contemplate leaves colored olive, gold, fire red, and brown especially light golden tans and deep oak which painted an amazing mural against the varying hues of blue skies. I suspect once trees feel the dramatic shifts in temperature and as the sun’s heat loses its intensity, they know it is time to shake off the leaves in preparation for winter.
In releasing their leaves, trees trust that new life will return in the spring. Why don’t the leaves hold on in an attempt to keep their inevitable demise at bay? Maybe they know that they will provide new energy as they are recycled as mulch for their tree’s own nourishment. The falling leaves symbolize that change is cyclical, natural and letting go is liberating. Like autumn and similar to what the Chinese medicine calendar suggests, I also have seasons of change, periods of transition in my life and when I trust that they will lead to new growth, I feel joy in letting go.
I also notice that leaves gently fall to the ground. It is not like a machine comes along to tear them off and leaves don’t drop until they are ready. Sometimes a windy, blustery day facilitates a cascade of falling leaves but those that are not ready stick to the trees through rain and wind. I wonder what I am willing to let go of as lightly as most leaves drift from the trees or am I like the few remaining leaves that seem to hold on no matter what?
Drifting autumn leaves also remind me that it is time to give away clothes that no longer bring me delight, books that others could be reading, and to shred old papers that are cluttering my desks and file cabinets. It’s also a time to re-assess new and old relationships. Oh it can be so difficult to let some people go even though they never call and are often too “crazy busy” to get together. What are the trees showing me about holding on, about life?
Falling leaves prompt me to examine other aspects of my self in flux; do I still need to feel special, unique or extraordinary, to become famous or rush to cross off everything on the “to do” list? I am ready to release unnecessary stress and a lesson in A Course in Miracles focuses squarely on this subject. “It is but myself that I crucify” with all of the crazy, anxious thoughts about completing my much too long daily “To Do” list.
“The autumn leaves drift outside my window, autumn leaves of red and gold…”
I love when autumn leaves fall…when autumn leaves must fall…. What signs let you know that it is a time for change, for letting go? Are you like the remaining leaves waiting for a shocking frost, a crisis to let go, to change? In autumn, the season of release, what inner and outer items can be cleared from your life so that an inevitable spring, the new growth can take root? Like the falling leaves what else do I, do you need to let go of——that will allow us to experience more of the peace and joy that lies within our hearts?
