I loved this little piece I wrote for my Newsletter which went out a few moments ago. AND....I was mortified to check it and find that it gobbled all of the italic print into these tiny unreadable lines in a font so small I didn't even know was possible. So I am sharing it here again, in full readable format (unless of course when I hit publish it does something weird like it did in the newsletter.). So lucky you, all of my site. members and Patrons get to read this......and unfortunately those that are just newsletter subscribers won't. And I suppose that's just the way that the cookie crumbles....or ball bounces....or shake spears....(haha)
Enjoy.
It is so wild that September is here already. I really used to love this month. The anticipation of my favorite season on its way. And that has changed as I have gotten older. I would still call September a good month and Fall my favorite season, but it's for different reasons now. It used to be Halloween and Samhain when I was. younger. AND I still love those things. As I have gotten older, Fall is the season of dying and of grief....and it's odd to say that this is the reason I like it now, but it's true. There is this feeling of being held by a secure warm weighted blanket as the whole Earth is expressing its letting go, it's dying, and it's grief in a majestic display. (and probably only humans with their human-centered focus see it as a display, which is kind of silly when I think about it. Nature isn't displaying anything. Nature isn't putting on a show. Nature is just naturing!)
There is this melancholic and bittersweet reflection that I experience. And it's oddly comforting in a way that isn't present at other times of the year. During the winter, grief can feel a bit entrapping to me. During the summer, there doesn't feel like there is time to slow down. During the spring I am too enamored with all the life that is springing forth to feel much of my grief. During fall it's there....right in my face and I find it just works best when I am in alignment with it. So I think about my Dad a lot - he actually died in September and that was the biggest grief I had ever known......until I started really listening more to the Earth. Now my grief is huger (I don't know if that is even a word, but "huger" is how my grief feels in relation, so I'm going with it!) But it's different. It's not just the grief of a woman (or sometimes a 10 year old girl) who sometimes misses her dad. It's a grief that affects us all. It's not bigger per se, it's just different. And it is also the same.
I think when we allow ourselves to feel that and to ride where those winds take us (although I think it's more like water than wind - grief.....and fire is much more like anger.....and well Earth......that really is, at least to me, currently also a place of grief but with a sort of grounding through it rather than swimming in it.....and I kind of like that......so maybe "I'll ride that earth" is much more fitting here.) we are doing it for a much more expansive thing than just our experience and our grief. It is everyones. It is everythings. It is grief for those that don't allow themselves to experience it. It's grief for those that are no longer here in body (I think they are still here in just a different way than we were used to.....but that's another subject for another time....probably late October when the veils thin.) It is grief for those who have yet to even be born. And with that grief, at least to me, comes a sort of forgiveness. It doesn't always and one can get stuck in the guilt and shame and misery of it all. However, when we bring in forgiveness (do you know for a really long time I had no idea what that even meant? That word....forgiveness. Sometimes I still dont. Not enough to describe it. But I can feel it, in my chest, ya know.....something between heartache and release and joy......which feels incredibly weird to say and words fall short, but that is the best way that I can describe it in this moment.)......this forgiveness is me saying "I see this grief. I feel it. I see the part I played in it. I am sorry. I am so very sorry. " and then tears. There are no promises to do better. There are no promises to do anything at all. There is just acknowledgment far deeper than the mental body.......and a taking responsibility........and then there is this release that comes and the tears are both joyful and kind of sad. It's such a strange thing, this big grief....this season.......and well, life in general. It really is. I mean we live here in this magical world with things like emotions and trees and mushrooms and birds.....and we are busy fighting and fretting over the silliest of things.
And that's the other thing I think grief does.
I think it puts things into a different perspective and everything changes. And I believe that is a good thing....and I dont think it's that hard. I think we just think that it's going to be. Feeling is really very easy if we don't spend too much time thinking about it. And isn't that just the funniest thing? It seems to be all that we think about and fret over and woe is me about....or at least for a great deal of our time.
This is when I like to go out and look at the night sky and remind myself how vast and big and meaningful it all is.....and also how small and insignificant and meaningless it all is simultaneously.
This season I invite you just to allow yourself to observe the grief.....then maybe feel it......then maybe walk with it.....and perhaps dance a bit together.
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