I’m not sure why Fall and I are not getting along this year. I can take her photo, but I always seem to want to focus on where the Sun is, or the striking colour of yellow leaves against the sky, or the specific vibrancy of the deep red in a leaf. I can go there. Into the space of the moment… but the season In general? With her, I am at odds.
Perhaps it isn’t her fault. Not really, anyway. It could just be that I am not ready for the months of comparable hibernation that contrasts the perpetual light and possibility of spring and summer. I have felt, of late, that my life is finally beginning. As if the child in me that never found her voice has emerged and has me searching for the wonder and beauty that is “just over there.” Little by little she is venturing out of the cages built for my safety and discovering how safe it is beyond them.
I was made for Summer. Her heat, passion, buzz… the magical shades of all the flowers, the dance of bees, the sweetness of berries, the Life and Joy of her thunder showers. I was made for the communal vibe of the full potential of Summer’s glow.
And yet… I discovered this in the middle of the Winter of the Soul. In the Stillness. In the pregnant pause of last Fall… in the short, dark days of December. So is it the season, or do I just not trust the soul state?
I’ve let that marinate a bit this morning. Danced with the unease of tiny me, and unpacked her suitcase. Usually the internal tension is a bit of an unfinished conversation with the little girl inside who doesn’t know how to move forward. She knows only the tenuous tightrope of change.
I think it is simple… I grew in summer this year. I embraced it. My heart kept time with spring as it moved into the fruitful season of abundance, and she wasn’t convinced the darkness of winter wouldn’t make the illusion implode. She didn’t trust my change to be change. I think, she mistook the season for a chinook wind. But it isn’t.
I am safe. Well. At peace. I do find joy in the little things. I am beautifully held by Love, immersed in abundance. I am ready for my tomorrows to arrive in today. They are not surprises. They are not something to fear. They are the realm of infinite possibility.
Fall is giving way to Winter. She always does. It is her way. But it is happy surrender, because she knows that the vibrant joy of her gold, red and purple is a passion that spills into the starry night sky of late November. It does not sleep. Rather, she nurtures in the stillness what cannot grown in the bustle of Summer’s productivity. Winter’s snowy blanket is the perfect canopy for relationships to develop intimacy in conversation. Light dances in the short hours of the Christmas season, over the ice and snow, in a brilliance that we could not endure for the long hours of Spring… for we would be over exposed. Love needs rest in order to heal the deep parts of our being.
So, Fall, stay a bit. I need you. I need to enjoy the transition. I need to watch you colour the season of my soul into deep, memorable impressions of peace that will carry her through the stillness as she prepares for Spring’s return in the wake of Winter’s light. I need to hear you crunch under my feet, smell you as you expose the strength in the leaves, and see the fruit of your nurture come to fullness before the snow covers the evidence. We are both in this moment. So I will stay here as long as you linger, and be present. And the little girl inside? She can peek out of the shadows and breathe, and know, that we are ok. Seasons change, but the lessons learned in them stay. Trees do not begin each subsequent year from a seed. They pick up where they left off, using the rest to fuel the next stage of life. What they produce in each summer is a gift for that moment in time. It doesn’t need to be retrieved from the earth in spring, it is consumed in season by those nourished by it. Each year, they produce fruit that remains, and each year there is an increase in the abundance of it. But, not, without the season of rest.
And into the world, go I… to listen to Fall without the fear.