A world of Octobers

Previously posted on TinyLetter

My dearest Maples,

I read a quote yesterday that said, “I’m so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers.” and I smiled. I smiled in the chill of the air that surrounded me at that moment. Thankful. We have been covered in a blanket provided by none other than Global Warming Glen, but now it seems Autumn has finally made her way back to us. Where everything has crisp to it again. 

It hasn’t been until my 30s that I have fully embraced what this time means. I don’t know if it’s an understanding of time or a bodily becoming with self, but there is a tender beckoning to look and move inward when October arrives. I have come to understand this time of the year to be intentional. A way to find grace and generosity with yourself and others. As if we spend all other months before this – mostly summer – trapped in the cycle of believing we are what we create and do. 

And then we pull up to autumn’s door, where she welcomes us in and helps us take off the layers of what is unnecessary and, in turn, blankets us in the comfort of being. 

I’m currently reading “Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times” by Katherine May. A memoir of sorts on personal winters and very real winters and on how we can give ourselves over to the cold that does not ask permission. As if we need to understand that inevitably of its call. May writes about the healing powers of winter; like ice to a wound. 

Our knowledge of winter is a fragment of childhood, almost innate. All the careful preparations that animals make to endure the cold, foodless months; hibernation and migration, deciduous trees dropping leaves. This is no accident. The changes that take place in winter are a kind of alchemy, an enchantment performed by ordinary creatures to survive. […] It is all very well to survive the abundant months of the spring and summer, but in winter, we witness the full glory of nature’s flourishing in lean times.

As someone who believes in the interconnectedness of everything – between the very buzz of nature and bustle humanity – I believe this “full glory” of “flourishing” is an invitation for us to participate in. My hope for you and myself in this onset of autumn to winter – even in the dreary days of February – we find new or old ways to flourish in our hibernation. That, when it is all said and done, and spring blooms and summer solstice inevitably rolls in, we are more at home with ourselves than we knew we could be.

And hey, if it doesn’t work out this year, we get to live in a world where there are Octobers.
 

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Namaste & Butternut Squash,
xo b