Be careful what you ask for. Every goodbye is hello; every hello is goodbye.
You may, like me, feel our emotions stuttering about like flying leaves. It can feel like you are quite unpinned. You may, like me, be struggling to keep positive. Fall is not my favorite time of year because I feel ‘this’ every fall. ‘This’ is a sense of dark places of thought that include grief, loss, abandonment, confusion, and almost depression. To acknowledge these feelings is imperative. Autumn IS all about endings and every journey needs to come towards an end and natural processes in every aspect of our life (our psyche included) is intimately affected by such.
The trees release their colors and we are reminded to release the things that do not serve us any more. We all have clothes that no longer suit us. We all have learned new ways at looking at things and old learnings have to be shuffled to the side for these new thoughts. We all have emotional baggage of anger, of of shame, of sadness, of resentment that has built up. We, like our grandmother trees, our sister trees, need to release such things. We cannot release what we do not acknowledge, though.
Autumn is a time of bounty, it is a comforting aroma of cinnamon and pumpkin pies, of apple crisps, and the bounty which we might have grown in our garden. (Oh, my dozens of bottles of tomatoes and relishes and salsas, and wonderful things for winter’s dark days.) Have seeds of knowing new things been planted and are you reaping the bounty of new thoughts? Did you allow yourself the freedom of emotional thoughts to grow into fulfilling peace in the midst of the chaos of covid? Have you dealt with the Fall of some of your hopes and dreams and made new ones? Have you let fears drop by the wayside and allowed for spiritual confidence as you have gathered an abundance of things to be grateful for? It is a time to reap what you have sown. It is time to move ourselves into the balance of the Universe as dark and light are of equal length. Have we forgotten to enjoy the light as well as be grateful for the dark?
For so many of us, dark is a thing of fear. But darkness is a time of nurturing, of rest, of gathering up energy and strength in the silent peace of night. I am learning to befriend my darkness’s. I am learning that, in those dark spaces, is real soul work. Change and renewal come as we shed a candle of light on to those things we thought were dark within us. It is time to listen to the call of your soul and now is the time to listen for those still small urgings within.
It is time for self-enquiry, for rituals, for the enriching bounty of seeking our dark spaces and understanding them, and the renewal of confidence it can bring to know the WHY of things and settle with them. It is like raking up leaves. Yes, we might fight wild winds in order to gather up the things we may have hidden in our soul for a time when we could deal with them. Now is that time. Yes it will be uncomfortable and we will move into areas where we might not feel safe. But now is the time. Now is the time that our ancestors gathered up what was needed, discarded what would hold them back, and to move camp to a new space that was safer and better for the dark winter months. Mother Nature is moving towards being in charge of our lives for the winter months. Things in this world are fleeting.
What boundaries do we have and what serve us for this new season? We are full of dualities in every area of our life. We are both light and dark. Time to release our shame, our guilt, our sadness, and focus on the things of import for these next months. It is time to release the things that keep us from self-love. It is okay to feel restless, to feel both energized and tired. It is okay to feel discomforts so that we might know peace. It is okay to be flexible rather than stubborn. It is okay to be flawed. It is OKAY! It is only when we drag things into the light can love seep in. Autumn is the time to face why we are brave and strong and good and enough of a woman. Release those things that keep you from feeling pure, deep, love for yourself.
©Carol Desjarlais 9.26.21
No comments:
Post a Comment