Seasons of the Spirit-The Great Letting Go
As I write, the weather outside has shifted. Last week the afternoons were warm and sticky. Today is cloudy, windy, and cool. When this happens, the weather inside me shifts as well.
For as long as I can remember, autumn has been a season of melancholy for me. This used to bother me quite a bit because I love the bright, sunny days and cooler temperatures. But give me a little wind, rain, or prolonged cloud cover and my spirit descends.
Recently, I have come to understand a particular invitation from the melancholy of Fall. Every year at this time, the same questions bubble up: What am I called to release? Who am I called to forgive? What am I called to let go?
Several years ago, my husband and I made pilgrimage to Ireland, and I had the opportunity to revisit some of what I knew about early Celtic Christians—who divided the world into two seasons: the season of light and the season of dark. Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day are celebrated at the exact halfway point between the autumn and winter equinoxes. These days were believed to be a threshold—a thin time—when the veil between heaven and earth grew more transparent and the wisdom of our ancestors was closer to us. We are reassured that we are not alone and reminded that we share our lives surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
In this threshold or doorway (limen in Latin), we are invited to welcome and embrace the coming season of darkness rather than struggling against it. The pivot on All Saints Day is inward toward rest and reflection. Autumn is a time to wipe the slate clean and clear out the old so that we can make space for what new thing might be born in the next season of growth.
Modern culture teaches us to avoid this invitation to “let go”— distracting ourselves with alcohol, shopping, overworking, overspending, bad food, and consumerism. And yet the natural, bodily tug to go inwards, as nearly all creatures are doing, is strong. When we struggle against this inward tug, we are left feeling as if there is something wrong with us.
If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, we might find the seasonal rhythms and cycles easier to embrace. But the primary metaphors of our era do not come from agriculture; they come from manufacturing. We tend to have a mechanistic understanding of our lives—expecting the same levels of energy, intensity, and productivity from ourselves at all times rather than attending to the invitation of the season. The rhythms of body and spirit do not operate like a machine.
As you stand on the threshold today, pivoting toward the darker season, I invite you to call to mind those persons you love who are no longer present in body but whose spirits continue to shape who you are. Take a few moments today or this week to ponder what no longer serves you and to release it with the grace of leaves falling from the oak trees. The season of darkness is essential to the rhythms of the earth. Observing a season of letting go is essential for our embodied spirits so that we might heal and plant seeds for the future. This is God’s gift for the renewal and restoration of our souls.
“Join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.”
-Great is Thy Faithfulness