To some this might feel like the period of a Great End . . . but in fact this is the time of a Great Beginning. It is time to die to who we used to be and to become instead who we are capable of being. That is the gift that awaits us now: the chance to become who we really are.
And that is the miracle: the gift of change.
– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from The Gift of Change:
Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life
Harper San Francisco, 2004
p. 12
Excerpted from The Gift of Change:
Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life
Harper San Francisco, 2004
p. 12
Autumn is a wondrous metaphor for the transformation that takes place in the human heart each season. When we notice a subtle change of light outside our windows, we know the dark season is near. Everything is being prepared for winter. Autumn calls us in from summer's playground and asks significant questions about our own harvest: What do we need to gather into our spiritual barns? What in our lives needs to fall away like autumn leaves so another life waiting in the wings can have its turn to live?
– Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr
Excerpted from The Circle of Life:
The Heart’s Journey Through the Seasons
Sorin Books, 2005
pp. 168-169
Excerpted from The Circle of Life:
The Heart’s Journey Through the Seasons
Sorin Books, 2005
pp. 168-169
Sacred Mystery
in the guise of the Antlered One,
Come!
Come and take me into your wildness.
Show me the world through your soulful eyes.
Enrapture me with your scent, your touch.
Help me to come both back and forward
to myself.
– Adapted from a post
at The Sacred Circle of Cernunnos
at The Sacred Circle of Cernunnos
Flaming September
What can you show me that is true?
My heart remembers
Do you remember, do you remember
All the life I gave to you?
The majesty of beauty is its gracious wholesomeness. The Beautiful unifies feeling, thought and dream. [This at-one-ment] coaxes the soul to the land of wonder where the journey becomes a bright path between source and horizon, awakening and surrender. Perhaps, through awakening our hearts to beauty, we can all come to know more intimately what John Keats meant when he wrote: “I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds” (Letters, October 18, 1818).
– John O’Donohue
Excerpted from Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Perennial, 2003
p. 9
Excerpted from Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
Perennial, 2003
p. 9
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants to take.
May the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity, and friendship –
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.
May the one you long for long for you
May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
May a secret Providence guide your thoughts and nurture your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.
May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longings as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.
– John O’Donohue
Excerpted from To Bless the Space Between Us:
A Book of Blessings
Doubleday, 2008
pp. 35-36
Excerpted from To Bless the Space Between Us:
A Book of Blessings
Doubleday, 2008
pp. 35-36
There is something absolutely magnificent about walking in a full-growth forest, when light shines through the needles and leaves in great shimmering columns; the way our heads tilt up from time to time, almost involuntarily, pulled by the sway of the treetops like masts at sea. But it is the low-lying trees, the broken and dissolving, that often convey a deeper sense of what it means to grow into a true elder – to open up, to become emptied of ego.
Does the hollowing out happen invisibly and in private? And how do we age with an open heart when we are often encouraged to stay perpetually youthful? In a culture that values surfaces, how do we pay attention to what is unfolding within our depths?
I sit by an elder tree on the hill above my house. His body is slowly disintegrating, becoming fertile ground for new plants and trees. It is as if the tree is willing himself to be used up for the good of the Earth. I like to imagine that my increasingly arthritic hips and aging flesh are not an end unto themselves but a portal into a more generous and wiser time in my life.
After all, youth is the time for ego – a time to build up a sense of self. But true elderhood is a different matter entirely. Instead of worrying so much about staying young, perhaps we need to learn how to grow old. There is nothing more beautiful than an ancient tree with low branched that open like arms, embracing us. We need arms like that to hold us in these turbulent times.
– Mary Reynolds Thompson
Excerpted from Reclaiming the Wild Soul:
How Earth’s Landscapes Restore Us to Wholeness
White Cloud Press, 2014
p. 32
Excerpted from Reclaiming the Wild Soul:
How Earth’s Landscapes Restore Us to Wholeness
White Cloud Press, 2014
p. 32
Blessed are you, Divine Mystery, who have made the entire universe your holy temple, spread out in the autumn evening sky. Sacred are the mountains and valleys, prairies and fields of this planet. Holy are the forests and meadows, the canyons and oceans deep, the cities and villages – all your sacred space. All who dwell upon this planet walk on holy ground, are priestly stewards of your earthly shrine.
Blessed are you, O Harvest of my heart,
Sacred Source of all life,
Delight of my days.
– Edward Hays
Excerpted from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim
Forest of Peace Books, 1989
p. 65
Excerpted from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim
Forest of Peace Books, 1989
p. 65
Autumn, that universal symbol of change, gently suggests to us that winter is on the way as the leaves turn red, and somehow, equally gently and gradually, reminds us that nothing is permanent. . . . If the seasons change this way, then everything else probably does too, so holding the moment becomes important. Each event must be savoured for what it is, and nothing can bring it back. On the personal level, as Pico Iyer notes, we should “cherish the seasons inside us,” and “seek out changelessness in change.” Or, as the 19th-century French novelist and critic Jean-Baptiste Karr famously put it, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” [“The more it changes, the more it’s the same”]. Autumn somehow reminds us of this, too; it’s the season, Iyer says, “when everything falls away,” but at the same time it will be preparing to come back.
– John Butler
Excerpted from “A Review of Autumn Light:
Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer”
Asian Review of Books
June 8, 2019
Excerpted from “A Review of Autumn Light:
Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer”
Asian Review of Books
June 8, 2019
I love the beauty of life’s last dance with the above ground realm at this time of year, as each being turns inward, towards the darkness and the sweet embrace of quietude. How I love these golden displays, this fire that burns bright in yellows, oranges and reds, before descending to feed the ground below, turning to compost, dark matter, feeding and holding the seeds, the future.
And as winter takes hold of the land, if you listen, if you watch, you will feel, hear, sense the seeds, as they dream into being, held by their elders, nourished by their homeland. Dreaming, stretching, reaching tenderly, powerfully; growing into medicine, food, beauty and life.
Take a moment to listen on those darkening days, to feel the beauty, the becoming, being whispered upon the land. Use this as a mirror for your own soul, your own inner landscape. If you feel into the darkness, when all around you feels lost; if you listen deeply enough, compassionately, you will notice the seeds inside yourself, learning, stretching, growing; wanting to rewild the concrete, birthing your medicine, for you.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Autumn: Season of Transformation and Surrender
• Autumn – Within and Beyond (2018)
• Autumn – Within and Beyond (2016)
• "Thou Hast Thy Music Too"
• Autumn, Adnan . . . and Art?
• “This Autumn Land Is Dreaming”
• Autumn Beauty
• Autumn Leaves
• Autumn Hues
• Autumn By the Creek
• The Last of Autumn Hues
• From the Falls to the River
• An Autumn Walk Along Minnehaha Creek
• Photo of the Day – October 29, 2021
• Photo of the Day – October 4, 2021
• Photo of the Day – October 24, 2018
• Photo of the Day – October 21, 2018
• Photo of the Day – September 29, 2016
• Photo of the Day – September 22, 2016
• Autumn Dance
• The Prayer Tree Aflame
• November Musings
• Late Autumn Light
See also:
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond (2017)
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond (2019)
• Winter . . . Within and Beyond (2020)
• Spring . . . Within and Beyond (2021)
Images: Michael J. Bayly.
2 comments:
Autumn is a season of stripping that anticipates winter, but it is also a season in which some fruits ripen. Those who emphasize the falling leaves, the shortening of the days, or the drop in temperatures, perhaps do not perceive well the chestnuts that ripen, the nuanced colors, the mushrooms that grow hidden among the leaf litter. In a certain sense, after the rigors of summer, autumn has something of a "second spring". There are fruits (like some grape varieties, for example) that ripen in autumn. I believe that something similar happens in our lives. Once autumn arrives, one can look only at the signs of reduction (which are sometimes evident) or one can train oneself to perceive the signs of a "second spring". It is true that one loses the spontaneity of youth, but, in exchange, one matures the capacity for deeper and less conventional relationships. You do fewer things, but you can put a more balanced imprint. In the autumn of life, people tend not to have the need to impress others. They are better able to listen and serve, to give the best of themselves without expecting anything in return.
Beautifully said, Mario! . . . Thank you.
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