Lessons with the leaves and the dream of winter.

Fall, fell, fallen. Fall away. Fall back. Fall for. Fall in. Fall down. Down to the ground. Down the cave. Deep into the crystalline mysteries of time.

The leaves are falling again, engaging in the circle of time, in a cycle of wisdom, a language in itself, so ancient it is beyond collective human memory. They fall gently, surrendering freely at nature’s request. Gracefully ready to dry, to let go, to drift down, to die, and to dance again on the crisp, awakened winds of autumn. The trees are turning inward, their gaze returning to the roots, to the soil, to the worlds beneath and within. The word fall brings to mind scenic images of the apple harvest and the beauty of the trees alive with a blaze of color even as they exhale into winter’s remission.

But to us, what does it mean to fall? We delight in the beauty of the season, thrive and survive on its abundance, but where in the human world of glamorized perpetual youth and idolized constant growth do we embrace or embody the fall? We rake the leaves off the lawn. We put them in the trash. We send away symbols of decay. Even in our oldest folkloric stories, we cast apples, the ripened fruit of the season, as the poisonous tool of wicked women. It seems so innocuous but, like so many silent indoctrinations, we are throwing away more than leaves.

Have we forgotten how to fall? How to be in graceful surrender? Have we stepped outside of more than just nature? Have we stepped outside of time? How can we learn to be in time instead of on time—to be inside the cycles of the seasons and the wisdom they freely offer? Before we can remember the fall, we must learn to recognize it again; we must go back. We must seek it out in ourselves. We must re-enter the cycle and embrace the circle of time.

Things Behind the Sun
Our current cultural template favors the fantasy of eternal spring—we infantilize beauty and believe a perpetual state of fruitful yield is ideal, although it is clearly outside of the cycle of life and death. Nature is wild, but even her wildness thrives within the balance of the seasons and the progression of time. As the digital age expands, we are encouraged at every turn to revere visibility, accumulation, and the ambition of youth. But in so doing we rob ourselves of the tools to complete our dance in balance, to grow up and not just embody our dreams but also pass through the test of facing the truths behind those dreams. The season of shifting to the shadows is an invitation to be with our questions, to learn to mark time, to be still, to reflect, to receive, and to see into the guidance at the heart of our dreams. The true magic of the dark lies in the fact that we are stripped of our masks, the spectacle of the outer world is obscured, and the hidden truths of the essential self can speak and, most important, be heard.

Autumn Reaches for Her Golden Crown
In going back, we can even look through time and language to the roots of the very words of the season and find guidance. Autumn comes from the Latin auctumnus, meaning to harvest or mature, telling us that the time of ripening into wisdom is the moment to reap and receive abundance. In the Old Irish lexicon, the word for autumn is fogamar, meaning literally “under-winter,” pointing to its place in the progression of time. The Native American medicine wheel identifies the movement of time from spring to winter as a meditation on the wisdom inherent in each stage of the cycle of all life.

In this cosmology, autumn is symbolized by the West as the place of the adult who has passed through the birthing of spring and the youth of summer and is ready to embody the parent, to ground the lessons of childhood into maturity. Not surprisingly autumn is also a close neighbor to automatic, which according to Scottish weaver, geologist, and lexicographer John Craig means “having the power of moving within itself.” Autumn also carries close lexical ties to the word autonomous too, which Craig describes as “living according to one’s own will.” And so nature does move according to her will, according to her relationship with time. She is the expectant mother holding our life in her womb, under her winter, and we move upon her belly as she moves within herself, churning from her very magma core. Nature knows her contract with time, space, and the stars, each element belonging to each other, eternally turning inside of the spiral.

Death’s Second Self
Inside the grace and acceptance of fall’s maturity, we turn our gaze to the shadows so eager to greet us earlier in the day. With the fall equinox at our backs, we stand with our expectant mother, like Persephone at the mouth of the cave to the underworld, knowing it is time to enter the darkness, the richness of shadow, and the release into the womb space of winter. The only way to regeneration is through this dance with death. So the fullness of the mother’s belly slows her down to focus and preserve the energy needed to speak with death and, in time, birth new life from her exchange with that pure potentiality. Here in the skeletal stillness of winter, we can turn to face our own dream, our own place in the mysteries of unstoppable time, and walk forward in full receptivity, full respect for the cycles of power at hand. Winter turns our very human sense of dominance and place upside down, and what does nature ask of us as we prepare? Fall. Fall back. Surrender. Release. Let go. Like so many leaves. Let go. ❤