Learning to Fall
Learning from the seasons
It was mid-October 2012, my first fall in a temperate zone. For a couple of weeks, I was feeling agitated, my sleeping pattern was kind of strange.
When I closed my eyes, I could see myself running into the woods and there was nothing that I wanted to do more at that moment.
It is not always easy to balance work life with wildlife. And for me, It has been a process in progress that only in the last two year I started to feel more comfortable about balancing it. Back in 2012, it felt very hard to combine both worlds.
As I shared before, earlier that year I consciously started to reconcile with my wild self, so to ignore that longing of running into the woods was impossible. The repetitive image of running into the woods was coming over and over again in my mind, so I had to make space for it.
A few days after that internal struggle, I managed to finish work earlier and I left to a forest close to where I live.
When I arrived there somehow my body knew where to go, AND my mind didn’t try to be in control. I started to walk my usual path, and suddenly I felt the urge to turn right, so I turned it. I was out of the walking path that I usually did and I started to run. I was running without thinking, I was running as if I knew where I was going to, I felt that I was running back Home, I was running to set something free … suddenly my body stopped and I observed it. I was in the middle of many trees, I could hear the silence around me and I felt in peace. I decided to sit there and I observed the nature around me and within me.
The only sound I could hear besides my breath was the sound of the leaves falling from their branches and reaching the ground. There was no wind, only gravity, and autumn. More I connected with that sound, more I could connect with the feeling that I was struggling with during those two previous weeks, that agitation, that strange uncomfortable feeling that was kind of new to me.
Slowly I had the feeling that more leaves started to fall and the sound of them falling started to go from subtle to more intense, and I felt the urge to cry.
I cried for many minutes, I cried until I was tired, I cried until it was finished.
From my sitting position, I laid down on the ground and fell asleep.
When I woke up, the leaves were gently falling over me and I was feeling calm and grounded. I was in a kind of sleepy state yet, and I can still remember my first thought at that moment, “what just happened?” and the answer came from inside and around me, “During Fall you need to learn to let it go. Look at the trees, the leaves are falling, they are moving on, they are going to protect the soil during winter and compost for the future seasons. You need to prepare yourself for your winter, you need to let it go.” And I thought, “what am I holding onto?” …. And the tears were there again to remind me that I had to let it go … I realised that I was holding on to my brother’s memories … there was still a part of me that couldn’t really accept that he was gone from my life so suddenly, that he died so brutally …. at the same time 3 years had passed and I really needed it to accept his death … I really needed to let it go from the memories of a future that we had created together. He was my best friend and together we dreamt about how we wanted to raise our families close to each other, we had so many plans … I had to let go of those dreams, I had to let go of sharing my life with him. I cried silently, close to the ground.
At some point, the tears stopped, and a deep feeling of gratitude filled my heart. I felt so grateful for those tree around me and for the ground under my body.
With no words, I felt so welcomed to that space, to do something that I didn’t manage to do until then. I thanked that space, I thank that forest to hold the space for me and teaching me that the Fall is a time to let it go from the heart.
After that year every autumn I prepare myself to let it go of something from my heart, and again it is not something easy to do, but it does feel good after it. I definitely feel more prepared to move to winter once I manage to let it go of something during this time of the year.
Today I cherish my path of learning how to Fall.
