The official start of the fall season is September 23, the autumnal equinox. This date is auspicious because it marks the onset of a great, but mostly unrecognized, cycle in life. 

Autumn days signal a new kind of activity; it’s the time of the year when nature makes her quiet retreat, a return journey back into the great “storehouse of life” wherein she will rest for a while before becoming active once again.

Fall is nature’s preparation for regeneration, and we too should use this time to release those dreams of ours that have proven themselves to be fruitless. In fact, anything left hanging over – from the heartache of an unresolved relationship, to that argument with someone that still stings us each time we relive it – should be deliberately dropped now, shed like dried-out leaves to blow away in the winds of time. 

The fall season, so full of autumn colors, tells the passage of one order of life surrendering itself so that another may take its place. This makes it a natural time for us to let go of any old resentment – to forgive those who may have hurt us – so that our heart, willingly emptied of the pain of the past has room within it for the arrival of a new order of joy and trust. 

During these last three months of the year – as we watch the life force of nature withdraw itself – we see fields of green turn from gold to brown. Leaves lose their sheen and fall, without ceremony, to the earth that will consume them. Still, in all of this we know there is nothing to fear. Great nature must take her rest in order to resume being active again when conditions allow. It is our time as well to embrace this natural repose, letting go of whatever lives within us that wants to drive us forward without regard for our need to rest.

“To everything there is a season” – so goes this tried and true ancient wisdom. Fall is the season for gently stepping back from whatever it is that we endeavor to be in life; it is the time for honestly evaluating our own pressing desires in order to discern the difference between what genuinely serves us and what simply enslaves us. 

Learning to let go in this way honors life, because it is true to what Life needs in order to succeed within us and through us.