I have this book that I love called “The Herbal Homestead” By Brittany Wood Nickerson. It is divided into 12 chapters, one for every month, and each chapter includes excerpts about life, recipes full of medicinal and culinary herbs to help you move through the season, and instructions about gardening, making herbal remedies, raising chickens and so much more.
Every month, I pick up this book and read the few pages in the correlating chapter. I always find the writing to relate so strongly to my mood on the seasons at the time, and September was no different. In this chapter, Brittany talks about how Fall is a time of transformation through death, but not an ending. As fall begins, the air begins to change, the sun goes down much quicker, the leaves begin to fall, and the plants, having produced enough seed and fruit, begin to die back.
It seems that our cultural celebrations of death during Halloween can be directly connected to the death, cold, and darkness that comes at the same time of year in nature. However, “in our culture, rather than seeing death as an evolution, we see it as an absolute, and ending” according to Brittany. But in nature, death is just part of the process. Leaves fall and decay to provide nutrients to the soil that feeds it. Plants will release seeds when they die, which in turn will pollinate and grow dozens of the same plants the following spring. The cold and darkness signal to the flora to begin this process, so it is ready to begin again in spring.
This transformation of the seasons should teach us that change in our own lives can often be seen as a death, a death of a career, a belief, a person that you once were. However, we should stop thinking of these changes as absolutes, and instead as a part of a bigger process. “Fall asks that we make the hard choices and realizations necessary to honor change,” explains Brittany. “In embracing change, there is room to let go – let go of barriers and roadblocks to our own success as well as to our process of transformation. [Fall] gently reminds us that the process of finishing and ending feeds new beginnings.”
Just as one plant needs to die so it can release its seeds allowing more plants to grow, it is important to reflect on your own life and make the decision to let things go so something else can flourish. Even more so, just as that first plant still provided fruit, clean air, nutrients, and shade before it died, it is important to have gratitude for the good these things have provided to your life and the necessity that they were at the time, before letting them die back for the next to begin.
So now that the Fall Equinox has passed and Autumn has officially begun, take some time to think of what has been holding you back, and where you would like your life to be come spring.
Deep thinking. Love it and love the opening image.