Happy Autumnal Equinox!
In many ways fall is my true “new year” full up of fresh starts, new promises and rooted intentions. It’s also often the most bittersweet of the seasons to me.
A letting go time; years and years of kissing them goodbye at the door of their pre-school, kindy and grade school classrooms and eventually at the door of their car as they leave for high school and suddenly at the door to their dorm room.
And it’s good. The letting go and the starting anew. The cycles and circles of it all, complete and yet never ending. We wouldn’t want it any other way. But like much of life it’s complex and layered, deep and bright and soaked in beauty.
We’re thrilled they can walk but miss holding them, amazed when they start reading but hope they’ll always enjoy our stories, relieved when we get a day to ourselves and they’re all in school but ache to have them home again.
And I don’t know about you but for me, my children and how I love them is such a mirror to my own unfolding and needs. Each moment of celebration of their growth reminding me of my own vast and profound potential, that truly I’m at once becoming and arrived.
Each moment of grieving this phase or that stage reminding me how great my capacity for love is and to be gentle, to savor to breathe. Because in the same way that fear is often excitement without the breath grief is often joy without the breath.
And so as we free fall into this season of shorter days and longer pants my wish for us all is palpable wellness, easy breathing, happy healthy dinnertime talk, devotion to the now, full awareness of the beauty that surrounds us and a whole lot more sweet than bitter.
Some of my favorite sweet fall pleasures:::
Hearing my kids band practice in the garage
Photo walks with my littlest
Alena Hennessy + Susan Tuttles Co-Lab multi-media photography and mixed media art e-course
This Spotify playlist