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
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
The changing of the seasons reminds us that we too are always changing, as we move from birth to death. There are also continual mini seasons in our lives, as we have periods of growth and rest, of planting and bearing fruit. And the same dynamic is even seen in each moment, and is at the heart of being aware:
The present moment hovers between past and future, just as life hovers between birth and death. We respond to both in similar ways. Just as we flee from the awesome encounter with birth and death to the safety of a manageable world, so we flee from the pulse of the present to a fantasy world…..Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless. Even with the ardent desire to be alert and aware in the present moment, the mind flings us into tawdry and tiresome elaborations of the past and future. The craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere, permeates the body, feelings, perceptions, will – consciousness itself. It is like the background radiation from the big bang of birth, the aftershock of having erupted into existence.
Stephen Bachelor, Buddhism without Beliefs
As we have said before, one do not have to wait to be completely satisfied with everything before one can be content. Similarly, everything does not have to be just as you would like it in your life for you to be grateful. One just has to give up the automatic tendency to judge oneself and ones life, fixing on imperfections, and the interpretations of our life which follow that tendency. Noticing small positive things each day, and being grateful for them, is a skill that can be practiced, and it develops our capacity to be just in the present moment. Being happy for the whole of our lives can start with us appreciating the moments of our life, now. And there are a variety of simple things each day which we can stop to notice and be grateful for – the changing colours on the leaves, a cup of coffee in the morning, a small act of kindness by a colleague, the taste of simple food. Each day presents new opportunities to just notice, no matter what our situation is.
Mindfulbalance 