letting go: the fruit of our grief
It is a rainy cold autumn day here on our little farm: and while the cool weather calls me to nuzzle into my sweaters, I am dropped into this familiar tender feeling fall can bring. Here on our little plot of land, we are reaping the abundance of the end of summer and watching as our trees and plants all shed themselves of what they’ve created this past season. We’ve harvested, grapes, hops, apples, quince, pears, plums, rose hips, tomatoes (only green now), and English walnuts. As I witness this outpouring from these plants, knowing it will nourish my family for months to come, I am in awe of this divine sacrifice they make in order to both perpetuate themselves and also to draw inward to survive the colder months. The trees and vines, in releasing leaves and fruit, are becoming bare and simple, and some like the tomato are saying their last goodbyes this season… they are all letting go in their own unique ways.
I think of the yearly felt sense I have in autumn of a greater awareness of my sadness, of all the prior goodbyes I’ve made and the lives I’ve lived. I think of the ways that I have created and let go, manifestations of my heart and nature set out into the world, many to never reap new life, but only as an offering of myself, a divine sacrifice of my spirit so that perhaps even just its energy may nourish the world around me in some way. Like the plants around me I take part, sometimes with more or less grace, in making myself bare and simple.
In Chinese Medicine, the main theme of autumn on an emotional level is letting go: primarily through processing and releasing our sadness and grief. It is no wonder, then, that we tend to feel more melancholy in these months. Our physiology literally brings the themes of most import to the forefront.
For me, probably like most of you, I have a few profound things in my history that still weigh heavily on my heart at times. This time of year is always a chance to go back and find ways to honor my grief and the people and parts of me that I have lost along the way. It is an important time to remember that we feel the pain most deeply when we lose people who brought out the best in us. And we feel the pain most deeply when we reflect upon important and potent aspects of ourselves that we perceive may have gotten lost or forgotten along the way. But the key to processing grief is to begin to recognize that those things we have “lost” are still very much with us in the way we are in the world by the very nature of that loss. By appreciating this, we can let go and live with the beauty of our loss, rather than just the pain.
I still profoundly miss my best friend, Zoe, who passed away ten years ago. We were friends since age 12 and she knew me in a way that no one else ever has. We connected on a level that I have not experienced with anyone else in my lifetime - there was just an unspoken knowing that we shared and it guided our friendship for over 20 years. It is a quality that I still feel the loss of deeply in moments. But what has also become clear over time is that these qualities and connections still live on inside me. When I am able to navigate my sadness well, I can feel her presence in my cells. In this way the life I create is still an outpouring of the love we shared. The fruits of my actions still contain the seeds of her spirit to be planted as an offering to the world around me. When I can let these fruits go, I shed any need to hold on to her and instead become bare and simple: an open and grateful vessel for life to pour through.
If you are navigating sadness and grief, I invite you to take a look at the other side of your sadness: the simple miracle that you were able to experience such a connection to warrant the feeling of grief is an unbelievable blessing. How have you been changed by that connection? How does it live on inside you? How do you live your life now in a way that honors and shares that magic?