Dear Spirit to Spirit friend,
It is clear. Something has shifted. There is now a stunning quiet in the mornings-a quiet that feels sudden and surprising. Just two weeks ago, the morning air was filled with the loud, joyous, and raucous sounds of birds - so many species- in animated conversation and negotiation for a place at my neighbor's feeders.
Today, only a few mourning doves, a few starlings, come softly by to enjoy the all too quiet morning meal.
The next movement of our journey in nature, in life, has begun- for the birds, for all the wild ones, and for all of us. The journey southward from here for some, the journey downward for others, and inward for even others. In the splendor of the golden autumn light that is slanting across the sky, there is a delicately mournful sense of the loss of the striking brilliance that was summer, a sense of a dying away into the opening of the next phase of seasons, of life.
Do you feel it in yourself? Something different in body, mind, and emotions today than even last week? Do you see it in your animal family members? Releasing their summer coats to make way for their winter thickness to emerge. Shifting their patterns into a fall/winter way of being.
It feels like a time of bowing to the extraordinary abundance we have all received that we call summer. Bowing to the glory of the brilliant light and hot days that have bathed us these past months. A turn and a bow to the next movement of life and all that it may bring.
The animals embrace this movement so gently, so graciously, meeting what nature presents in openness and interest. Begs the question: can we humans do the same? In gentle surrender, in loving acceptance, in grace, walking softly and openly into the next movement of life. This time of season invites us to...softly for now.
In Gratitude & Love, Joanna