When you are in the trance [of fear]… fearful thoughts and emotions take over and obscure the larger truths of life. You forget the love between you and your dear ones; you forget the beauty of the natural world; you forget your essential goodness and wholeness. You expect trouble and are unable to live in the present moment.
Tara Brach
The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows. When we emerge from our offices, rooms and houses, we enter our natural element. We are children of the earth: people to whom the outdoors is home. Nothing can separate us from the vigor and vibrancy of this inheritance. In contract to our frenetic, saturated lives, the earth offers a calming stillness. Movement and growth in nature takes its time. The patience of nature enjoys the ease of trust and hope. There is something in our clay nature that needs to continually experience this ancient, outer ease of the world. It helps us remember who we are and why we are here.
John O’Donohue
Sometimes we have to allow space for things to become clear, or trust others even if we are not sure what is happening. Where do you have to exercise patience at this moment?
Consider the farmers who eagerly look for the rains in the fall and in the spring.
They patiently wait for the precious harvest to ripen.
You, too, must be patient
James 5:7f
Meditation practice is about dropping into a non-doing mode, where we do not have to be someone or achieve something. In this way it echoes the sense of rest found in close relationships – a place we can simply be ourselves, where we can be weak, without having to prove our worth or impress anyone:
Power and cleverness call forth admiration but also a certain separation, a sense of distance; we are reminded of who we are not, of what we cannot do. On the other hand, sharing weaknesses and needs calls us together into “oneness”. We welcome those who love us into our heart. In this communion, we discover the deepest part of our being: the need to be loved and to have someone who trusts and appreciates us and who cares least of all about our capacity to work or to be clever and interesting. When we discover we are loved in this way, the masks or barriers behind which we hide are dropped; new life flows. We no longer have to prove our worth; we are free to be ourselves. We find a new wholeness, a new inner unity.
Jean Vanier
Yesterday’s equinox saw a shift in the balance of light and darkness in each day. We too can find light and darkness, strength and weakness, within us. We like strength, but weakness often frightens us and our instinct is to run away. What if we could stop struggling with those parts of our lives and look at them, without seeing them as the enemy? To grow emotionally and psychologically, we first need to acknowledge our personal vulnerability.
I gratefully acknowledge how darkness has become less of an enemy for me and more of a place of silent nurturance, where the slow, steady gestation needed for my soul’s growth can occur. Not only is light a welcomed part of my life, but I am also developing a greater understanding of how much I need to befriend my inner darkness.
Joyce Rupp, Little pieces of light
Autumn is the season of reaping what has been sown and of things coming to fruition. Traditionally, it is also the period when one begins to wind down and celebrate the abundance and goodness of the earth, before the year moves into the dark and cold time of winter. Because of the rich colours and changing light it is a very suggestive time, and leads us to reflect on changes and growth, as well as letting things go and moving on. From the Autumn Equinox onwards the days get shorter and darkness and night take center stage. These changes are natural and remind us of the balance in our lives between light and darkness, growth and rest. We often more naturally prefer light and warmth to the dark and the cold. However, in this poem, we are reminded that some of the darkness in our lives is also a time of growth, as necessary as the bright days of Spring or Summer. The poet reflects on loss, and sees reflections of her struggle and grief outdoor in Nature. She sees the challenge, where she needs to go – to let go “as trees let go their leaves,” and “treelike, stand unmoved before the change.”
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure – if I can let you go.
May Sarton, Autumn Sonnets
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