Autumn's Gift

Energy that inspires, purifies, reveals life's essence

In autumn we learn more about ourselves, perhaps, than in any other season. Having provided the harvest, Nature now makes everything bare.

In this season Nature lets go of its abundant creation of the past year in a grand final display. Autumn marks the end of the growing season — a turning inward, a falling away of outer-directed energy. Leaves turn color and drop. The old leaves go back to the earth, enriching it to promote the coming of new leaves, a new harvest. 

Nature instructs us about our own cycles of creating and letting go: Trees in autumn don't stubbornly hold onto their leaves because they might need them next year. Yet how many of us defy the cycle and hold unto what we've produced or collected — those decayed leaves, that old negativity? How can we hope for a harvest next year unless we let go of the old and start afresh? 

Read the complete article by Neil Gumenick, originally published in Meridians, Autumn 1996.