Fall

Taking an unfamiliar path I move slowly, more cautiously than usual. I allow myself to really see what’s meeting my eyes rather than running on automatic pilot. My senses are heightened, tingling with the new. My eyes are open, my finger tips awake, feeling their way. I breathe as if it’s for the first time in so long. When did I forget to really breathe?

Dry, crispy leaves crunch under my step, the sound almost cacophonous in the quiet of the still forest. I want to indulge it, my stride becomes bigger, stronger, I let my feet come down harder into the piles of leaves and give a little kick after each step that sends reds, golds and browns flying into the air.

I am seized by the childlike desire to throw myself into the mounds of leaves and roll in them unabashed. I glance around, I see no one, I turn my back on a huge pile of autumn foliage and I let myself fall backwards into it as if I were falling into my own comfy bed at home. The smell is so wonderful, earthy and damp, fresh and woody. I grasp handfuls of leaves and throw them in the air above my head; they shower down, falling on my face, tickling my nose.

I wriggle down deeper into the pile and throw more handfuls, bringing the crunching and rustling to a crescendo and then I lie perfectly still. I am content beyond measure, looking up at the tree boughs with the dappled sunlight breaking through. There are fine threads of cobweb strewn from some of the branches with drops of dew glistening along them, like strings of fairy lights. The leaves seem to dance, shimmer, each with its own halo around it. The shimmering is contagious; As if it’s tingling just under the skin on my face. It’s invigorating, waking a long neglected joy inside me.

I breathe in and I breathe out, my heart beats, my blood pumps around my body. I listen to the breeze gently rustling through the woods and wonder why I haven’t been here before now. I feel so safe here, safe in my own skin, safe to be exactly as I am. Free from the idea that I need to be or do anything that doesn’t come naturally to me.

Memories come flooding back now from childhood, I remember this feeling. I used to play for hours on my own, hiding in the bracken, sitting by the river with the water cascading over my toes. Leaning my back against a favourite tree and telling it all about my life as if it had ears to hear my tales. It never occurred to me then that the trees could not listen to me or that the flowers were not my friends. I knew no separation, I was never alone. There was just one endless flow of experience, uninterrupted contentment.

And now I remember what nature is telling us, how each part of it is a reflection of ourselves. I remember that the bubbling stream is showing me how to flow and the willow branches are telling me to relax and let my body dance and be moved by the soft breezes and powerful gales of my emotional landscape. That if I bend I will not break.

I know by heart that the wide open sky is reminding me how vast and still simple presence is and I know that each and every flower is trying to teach me to bloom, to shine, to unfold. Not to be shy of this world but to let the fullness of my being be a unique expression of love, bright, radiant, exploding into existence for the space of my lifetime. Short though a lifetime may be, I think it’s so worth it.....