Autumn Lessons

I can’t describe to you how many leaves fall into my yard each autumn. Let’s just say it is substantial. The work required to move them around to suit my fancy is also substantial. Of course a practice like this has its own inherent teachings around staying in the moment and relishing the art of such a task. It was in the middle of that particular moving meditation that I looked up to be gifted with perhaps a more profound lesson. All around me, twirling down in a beautiful dance were another round of golden maple leaves adding to my task. It was then I realized the deeper wisdom these leaves had to offer.

Here I am, beginning my retirement and all that entails... watching my girls move further away from the little beings that would want nothing more than to jump in the great pile I was creating (however, I am confident they will never move totally away from those people... as was proven to me the other morning by @banyanlehman) and my so called professional value no longer a part of my identity. These trees are the greatest teachers as to how to handle these changes. As winter approaches, the leaves change colour and fall from the branches of the trees they have nourished, to land on the ground to eventually add nourishment of a different kind to those same trees. Yep, that sounds about right. At its very essence, is it any different from the changes we all face? I invite you all to join me to face these often grief inducing life changes with the same approach as the leaves we all rake. We need to know when it is time to simply let go and not cling to the way things have always been. In letting go we are indeed putting ourselves into the wind. The uncertainty should not be frightening... but exhilarating. As we set ourselves onto this new path we should be our brightest and most colourful. This is no time for a low profile. 0h no, you just let your colours shine. Twirl in the wind and dance into your new direction knowing that your role may be changing but it will be just as nourishing in its own way. Yes, like so many other things, if we just Pay Attention there are so many things in our day to day that hold such profound lessons for us.

So bring on those changes. Shall we dance?