Autumn: Seasonal Reflections - Lessons from the Fall Season
The autumn season is a time for balancing light and gloom, letting go, and understanding the impermanence of things. Here are some quotations and resources to help you ponder this time of year.
The Days Are Named Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat contributed to this article.
The autumn equinox heralds the coming of the autumn season, which has historically been viewed as a transition leading up to the darkness of winter. In Holidays and Holy Nights, Christopher Hill notes that for Christians who follow the liturgical year, fall marks the beginning of the cycle. In one extract, he claims that "the dynamics of the fall of the year have the sweep of a big storm."
That might explain why so many poets have written about this time of year. Robert Atwan chose 38 examples from poets such as Robert Bly, May Sarton, Carl Sandburg, Robert Penn Warren, Archibald MacLeish, and others for The Heart of Autumn. The poem "Leaves" by William Virgil Davis, which expresses the mystical aspects of fall, is excerpted from this book.
What spiritual teachings and practices does the arrival of fall suggest? Here are three spots where you may meditate.
1. BALANCE DARKNESS AND LIGHT
Day and night are of equal length during the autumn equinox. This indicates the need of balancing light and darkness inside us. We frequently fear the dark and worship only the light. Joyce Rupp, a Catholic writer, and poet who is one of our Living Spiritual Teachers challenge us to befriend our inner darkness in Little Pieces of Light: "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 required for my soul's growth can occur." Not only is light a pleasant addition to my life, but I'm also becoming more aware of how much I need to befriend my shadow.
In Caught in Fading Light, Buddhist Gary Thorp presents a fantastic teaching lesson about embracing all instances where we are left in the dark with no answers:
"Once upon a time, while Zen master Tokusan was still a student, he paid a visit to his instructor, Ryutan, shortly before dusk." They sat on the floor of Ryutan's hut, drinking tea and talking about Zen till late at night. Finally, Ryutan responded, 'Perhaps it's time you go home.' Tokusan proceeded to the door, bowing to his master. 'It's pitch black outside,' he remarked. 'Why not take this,' Ryutan suggested, lighting the lamp. Ryutan extinguished the light just as Tokusan was ready to pull the lamp from his teacher's grasp. Tokusan instantly realized he knew everything."
Thorp's thoughts: "Sometimes the only way out of a bad situation is to start at the beginning. Turning off a television set and extinguishing a lantern have certain parallels; both are sudden and transitional and can transport us to another world. We are constantly alone in the dark."
2. GIVING UP
As we watch leaves fall to the ground in the autumn, we are reminded that nature's cycles reflect our own. Autumn is a season for letting go and relinquishing what has been a burden. Such gestures of surrender are honored in all religious traditions. The autumn season is ideal for practicing letting go and allowing Spirit to lead our life.
In terms of Power The elder statesman of current depth psychology, James Hillman, urges us to learn from others about this: "For the actor's goal on stage is to 'get out of the way so that the character he or she is portraying may completely emerge. So, too, must the writer and painter get out of the way of the work flowing onto the page and canvas."
Another of our Living Spiritual Teachers, Buddhist teacher Sharon Saltzberg, writes in Lovingkindness about one of the consequences of letting go: "Generosity possesses such strength because it is defined by the inner trait of letting go or releasing. Being able to let go, give up, renounce, and offer generously all stem from the same source within ourselves. When we practice generosity, we open ourselves to all of these liberating characteristics at the same time. They transport us to a profound understanding of freedom while simultaneously being the loving manifestation of that same condition of freedom." So, fall is the ideal time to offer generously of your time and abilities to others.
3. ACCEPTING IMPERMANENCE
Autumn reminds us of the transience of all things. We've seen the beginnings of life in the spring and the flowerings and profusions of summer.
The falling leaves and bare trees remind us of the transient nature of all things. In his book The Lord Is My Shepherd, Jewish rabbi and writer Harold Kushner believes that contemplating the changing seasons makes us more aware of all the beauty that surrounds us:
"'Death is the mother of beauty,' declared poet Wallace Stevens. What those words mean to me is that we value the beauty of a sunrise, a New England fall, a relationship, or a child's embrace because those things will not last forever, and neither will we."
Fall also brings mortality to our attention, as well as the challenge to live each day to the fullest. In Embracing Uncertainty, Susan Jeffers offers a spiritual practice to help with this two-fold movement:
"I was once informed that certain spiritual teachers in Tibet used to lay their teacups upside down before going to bed each night as a reminder that all life was impermanent, and then, when they awakened each morning, they turned their teacups right side up again with the cheerful thought, 'I'm still here!'"
Finally, Cynthia Kneen presents an open heart exercise to bring with you into the fall in Awake Mind, Open Heart.
"When you are bold and have an open heart, you have affection for this planet – for the sun, for other people, for the experience. You feel it nakedly, and when it strikes your heart, you know how transitory this world is. As a result, saying 'Hello means goodbye' is ideal. 'My hope, hello once again."