The first snow fell yesterday. A strong stormy wind blows this morning, scattering the leaves which begin now to fall in earnest. Shorter days. The changing outside weather impresses itself on our inner life, challenging our “routines” and confusing the body. It reminds us of rhythms and patterns in a world that loves predictability, and of things passing through when we foolishly give permanence to our mind states:
O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger,
ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do
Walt Whitman, Me Imperturbe
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
Eventually, we all need to be willing to face the deepest, darkest beliefs we have about ourselves. Only in this way can we come to know that they are only beliefs, and not the truth about who we are. By entering into this process willingly, by seeing through the fiction of who we believe ourselves to be, we can connect with our true nature. As Nietzsche put it, ‘One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.’ Love is the dancing star, the fruit of saying yes, of consciously and willingly facing our fears.
Mindfulbalance 