— Yesterday morning I sat, cradling a hot cup of coffee to watch out the window as street-sweepers whisked away piles of vibrant, multicolored leaves. It had been years since I had experienced the rather distinct midwestern change of seasons. It had been years since I had felt the wet summer winds of the lakeshore— those mere months before had caressed my skin like a French kiss—nip into the brisk and breezy nudge of blanket-worthy weather. It had been years since I had so intimately watched nature effortlessly embrace change and automatically undergo radical metamorphosis. Tree leaves, once budding and bursting with blooming promise, had ripened with verdant vigor and now lay dangling the last of their fiery fervor before falling into winter’s fodder.
It never fails. Every time I allow myself to pause, get present, and truly observe the surrounding landscape, I am reminded how infinite is the wisdom of nature.
We have heard it prophetically and profoundly reflected in phrases like, “the microcosm is in the macrocosm,” “as above so below,” and “as is the atom, so is the universe.”
Like nature, humankind is presently betwixt a changing of seasons. There are rules of commerce—once relevant to an arcane and industrial system—that have shriveled in their present impracticality. There are political practices—once pragmatic—that have provoked an aggressive, destructive and painful polarity. There are fights for ownership and arguments for separation—once helpful for their organizational properties within a community—that have ignited into violent, scorching furor. Like deciduous autumn leaves, the world seems to be deep in a whipping, whirling dervish of fall; shedding enfeebled beliefs, ideologies and societal frameworks that have now withered on the vine.
As we witness expired leaves and outdated pageantry fall, perhaps now is the time to heed the example from our omnipotent planet, and just let go. Let go of our own personal stories that keep us trapped in our life’s rearview; let go of the limiting beliefs that keep us stagnate to our circumstances; let go of the people, places and things that repeatedly—ignorantly or punitively—inflict pain onto our person.
Nature’s sophistication is omniscient in its simplicity. It strains neither to grow, nor to die, for, the creation, innovation of something new inevitably comes from the cessation, expiration of something old. Perhaps now is the time to let go of what stifles, imprisons, impedes us from personal progress. Perhaps now is the time to release that which no longer serves us in service of life’s natural tendency towards transmutation. Perhaps now is the time to shed our leaves of limitation so that we may make room for an invaluable and benevolent bloom.
What is one emotion, thought or habit that would feel amazing for you to let fall away today...?
