010 How to Stay Grounded in the Fall Season
Hello Friends,
I hope you enjoyed last week’s practice. It’s a real gem and so, if you missed it, check it out here. As with any good meditation, it can be experienced in an endless number of ways. It all depends on the day, your goals, and your state of consciousness. Feel free to reply to this email and let me know how it went for you.
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The Shoulder Seasons
Fall and spring – affectionately called the “shoulder seasons” in northern New England (and the travel industry, it turns out) – are powerful times of year.
They are transitions, periods when certain elements of the natural world are waking up and others are being put to bed.
The same, of course, happens within us.
And while the shoulder seasons are generally met with celebration, they bring an inner-disruption that’s often overlooked or pushed to the side.
You might know it as a shaky, ungrounded feeling that accompanies the exuberance of spring. Or as the quiet anxiety and feeling of loss that simmers underneath the comfort and nostalgia of autumn.
If summer is for action and winter is for rest, Fall is for something in the middle – a quiet, steady outward focus.
A Strategy for Fall
As the natural world and the collective consciousness tumble their way from summer to winter, keep yourself grounded with a daily walk outside. Move slowly with your attention focused on your senses and the environment around you. Notice the shifts from day to day, the small ones that add up quickly when we’re not paying attention.
Enjoy the weather as it becomes more complex and varied. Anticipate the senescence of the plants around you - the earliest stages are wonderful but easy to miss.
And, above all, leave time for yourself.
The feelings that arise in fall are powerful and deserve attention. Gestures of self-care and reflection allow us to enjoy the tumbling of the season without being tumbled ourselves.
By way of example, I’ve shared a personal reflection below. It was written on September 24th, the day after returning from a three week trip back to the northeast US. Some of the highlights of that trip were covered in a previous email.
Fall in LA
Over the last few weeks in the northeast US, the signs of autumn were gathering. Foggy mornings gave way to crisp clear days. The first leaves were showing color – strongly in the wetlands where the red maples were peaking but also on the hillsides, as an almost imperceptible shift in color became obvious after a few cold nights. And, of course, there were wildflowers – mostly goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, and asters – lighting up overgrown pastures and roadsides.
As I sit here, looking out of my window, I find myself wondering about fall in Southern California. What is fall in a place where winter is an endless spring? For each season I’ve been here (1 winter, spring, and summer) I began with low expectations. After all, how much can happen in a place where the weather never changes?
A lot, it turns out. First, I’ve learned that the weather actually does change here – though in a slow and subtle way. And those seasonal changes bring equally subtle and wonderful shifts in the landscape around me.
Today is the second calendar day of fall and I’m sensing – I think – the first tastes of the season. The sun is still out (naturally) and it’s still hot (of course) but the breeze is different. It’s cooler, much cooler than you’d expect on a day this warm. And it’s fresher somehow, as if the ocean is just over the hill instead of miles away.
But, while I bask in this most pleasant of weather, I have the words of two experienced Angelinos in my head: “October is the warmest month in LA”.
Which I know, one on level, can’t be true. Not empirically at least. Every bit of research on the subject tells me that July-September is the hottest part of the year.
So what’s the deal with October? Why does it feel so hot to these two reliable and thoughtful people? I have no idea but, if my first 10 months of life in LA are any indication, I’ll be surprised and (mostly) delighted with the answer.
That's it for this week. Get outside, enjoy the season, and take care of yourself.
Energetically,
David