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Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year. With its fresh sunny mornings, beautiful rust coloured leaves, seasonal vegetables and wonderful changes in light, it’s a softly glowing, magical season. It’s also a time for us to learn from the wisdom of the plant kindgom; to harvest what we’ve sown and to shed our own leaves and draw our energy inward.
Harvest
With many autumnal vegetables such as squash, pumpkins and beetroot ready for harvesting, we ourselves have sown the seeds of our actions, emotions, thoughts and words in earlier times. Sometimes we feel in a position to mindfully and abundantly plant the seeds of change, kindness and love and, at other times, circumstances often compel us to scatter seeds of doubt, uncertainty and fear. If we are aware of our own thoughts and feelings, we are more likely to radiate the energies of abundance, communicating with the world in a way that helps us to initiate positive change on a higher vibratory level. By finding a quiet space for ourselves every day, free from distraction, we can focus on what is happening in the moment, to become more in tune with our emotions and thought patterns, giving us insight into our actions and intentions and encouraging us to initiate change for the benefit of ourselves and for others.
The Natural Cycle Of Release For Regrowth
We can learn a lot from trees and their innate wisdom. When a deciduous tree (one which annually sheds its foliage) lets go of its leaves, it appears to us as beautiful rust-coloured hues but there is so much more going on.
In the autumn, a tree reduces its production of chlorophyll, the pigment in leaves that gives them their green colour, and this breaks down within the leaves to give way to other pigments with orange colouring, such as carotenoids. This happens because the tree withdraws its vital fluids from its foliage, pulling its life force back into itself, leaving concentrated natural sugars in the falling leaves, which carpet the earth at its roots, ready to break down into mulch at the base of the tree to feed it in preparation for new growth again in spring. Not only do these fallen leaves benefit the tree but they are often pulled down into the soil by other creatures, such as worms, to use as food.
Letting Our Leaves Fall
Often we feel that we have to carry our experiences, memories, thoughts and feelings around with us but some of these have served their purpose and are no longer useful for our long term growth. Sometimes we feel that in order to respect the memory or experience we must continue to shoulder it, carrying it with us always. But each experience serves a purpose unique to itself and to us - it is our teacher. It encourages us to learn from it so that we can discover more about ourselves, helping us grow. The leaves that were once green must transform to fulfill another, no less important purpose.
As children of the Earth, we share this with the trees. Those experiences that we fed with so much vital energy have served us and now we must direct our energies elsewhere, withdrawing and returning our life force within. Those new 'green' experiences, those that allowed us to grow, must fall away to transform themselves and us, disintegrating into the roots of who we are, becoming another of life's teachings, making us stronger.
Honour your experience, learn its wisdom and let it go. Then you can rest, recuperate and restore, ready to put life into new leaves when the time comes.
Further Information
Copyright © Andrea Doran, Holistic Medicine Specialist & Healer, Flourish and Contributors | For personal use and information only | Original post date: 20th September 2018
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