the messy wisdom of fall
when letting go feels like shit (and still counts)
The embers and essences of fall.
Happy Autumn, Beloveds,
I’ve written three different newsletters this month, and all of them have been laid to rest in the digital garbage bins. My plans for tidy, polished reflections scattered as easily as the leaves outside my window.
There’s no other way to say it: a part of me is dying. Not literally, I think, but spiritually. Something I once believed was solid, essential, me is drying up. Where poise and inspiration once curled soft and green, a rawness now settles.
I look at the trees outside: their essence beginning to be pulled back into the roots, into the trunk, into the places that matter most for survival. What remains is dry, brittle, crackling against the wind. From the outside, it looks like loss, and it is. But beneath the surface, that withdrawal is nourishment. The tree is reclaiming what it needs, letting the leaves fall away so something deeper can endure.
This is where I find myself. A part of me I thought I couldn’t live without is crisping at the ages, flaking into something unrecognizable, falling apart before my eyes. It feels uncomfortable, itchy, grief-filled. And yet, if I’m brave enough to follow nature’s metaphor, maybe that discomfort means life is being pulled back into what’s truly vital.
This, too, is seasonal wisdom.
Autumn doesn’t whisper about release; it pulls, strips, demands. Leaves don’t drift down leisurely because they’re ready—they fall because their energy is needed elsewhere. This is what we’re called to do this season: to clear away, to compost, to make space for what we cannot yet see.
So I’m going through the motions. I sit in my practice. I do my readings. I walk, I rest, I teach, I plan, I keep showing up. One step, and then another. I know the path reveals itself as I move, even when my brain screams it isn’t enough. Maybe that’s the real wisdom: that doing the motions is the practice, even when it feels dull, heavy, even… deathly.
If you find yourself weary, second-guessing, trudging more than flowing, know that you’re not broken.
You’re in season.