Autumn is slipping through summer’s branches
and I am listening.
I am listening to the dying
flowing forth from autumn’s being.
I am listening to the life
hidden in the dying.
I am listening.
We are swamped in loss and it just keeps coming: a pandemic with no end in sight, wildfires ravaging land and lives, devastating storms churning the seas, a beleaguered nation more than ever in need of one another yet divided in increasingly drastic ways. All of this in addition to the very personal losses each one of us is already struggling to bear. When so much of life has changed, when so much that we hold dear is gone or threatened, how is it possible to have any hope, much less see that there is “life hidden in the dying”?
In a world that feels so off-balance, I am pausing to note this week’s autumn equinox, a moment when the world is actually in balance. On September 22, just about the time you might be nursing a morning cup of coffee in this part of the world, the sun is directly above the Equator, making day and night equal in length. In our northern hemisphere, this is the beginning of fall, a season of dying; in the southern hemisphere, the beginning of spring, a season of life reborn.
Hold that image in mind for a moment: the sun poised above opposing but connected hemispheres, shining equally on each side. Balancing darkness and light, uniting loss and renewal. Illuminating the “life hidden in the dying” — the coexisting opposites that together form a whole world, the planet that is our home.
As a grief counselor, it strikes me that this is one of the constant challenges of loss — finding our balance among the confusing opposites that form our new world, often a world we did not want or choose. This is what I call learning to live with “the bothness” of conflicting thoughts and emotions, honoring each one (no matter how uncomfortable) and allowing them to coexist because together they tell the truth of our new life.
Perhaps you have experienced this “bothness”:
as a caregiver, wishing for the suffering to end while desperately wanting more time together
after the death of someone you love, yearning to be normal again while feeling this is betrayal of that love
in the midst of grief, feeling lonely yet no desire to be social
in an unhealthy relationship, feeling you are right to set healthy boundaries yet wrong not to keep trying
when an unhealthy relationship ends, confused that you can miss someone who hurt you so badly
in this troubled time, feeling deeply grateful for your personal wellbeing yet deeply uncomfortable with your relative ease in contrast to others’ suffering
even in life changes that you choose and orchestrate, acutely missing what you have chosen to change
Our culture prefers to keep things simple, assigning black-and-white, either-or values to thoughts and emotions. We are steeped in a legalistic, argumentative, right-or-wrong, you-or-me way of approaching life — and one another. Our impatient society highly encourages and values multi-tasking but certainly does not encourage “multi-emoting.” We are pressured to feel or think only one thing, and to dismiss anything else as unworthy.
To find our balance when loss throws us off-balance, we need to accept and value our multi-emoting. We need to be like the sun at the equinox, shining the light of our awareness (mind, heart, and spirit) on the opposites that make up the whole of our experience, trusting in the hard-earned wisdom of the whole rather than the short-cut convenience of the either-or. We find balance by allowing ourselves to think and feel what seem to be opposites but turn out to be complementary — essential pieces that fit together to form our truth. A truth that is uniquely our own, and uniquely healing.
I invite you to begin by listening to autumn. What do you hear?
I am listening to the song of transformation,
to the wisdom of the season,
to the losses and the grieving,
to the turning loose and letting go.
I am listening to the surrender of autumn.
I am listening.
Excerpts from the poem Listening to Autumn by Macrina Wiederkehr
Entire poem: https://www.annsplace.org/new-page-1
Photo credit: David Monje on Unsplash