Come forth into the light of things; let Nature be your teacher.

~ William Wordsworth

Believe one who knows: you will find something greater in woods than in books.

Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.

~ Saint Bernard de Clairvaux

Saturday, October 17, 2020

The Season and Year of Letting Go

 

Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver on Unsplash


In this season of letting go, I feel as though we have been living in a year of letting go. That’s what 2020 has been. It’s been about clarity of vision, but this virus, Nature has been teaching us to let go.
 
What does it mean to let go? The best way to answer that is to look at the things we’ve had to let go of. We’ve let go of a way of life, loved ones, hopes and dreams. Though we are in the liminal space of this letting go, we do catch glimpses of what may be.
 
Letting go can be a momentary release or it can take months or even years. It’s not easy, but it is necessary for a new way of life and other hopes and dreams to come alive. In the case of loved ones, to let them go helps us move forward and embrace them in a new way.
 
Letting go is followed by a period of disorientation. It’s that stepping off the cliff into darkness I often talk about. Sometimes we wish we could hold onto the old ways and dreams until the new ones are here, but that’s not possible. Sometimes I wish it were because I don’t like the topsy-turvey feeling of not knowing, of not even seeing the next step, of feeling as though the world has been turned upside down.
 
But in this emptying out process, that Nature expresses so well in Autumn, allows the old to die so space is made for the new in Spring. And during the long Winter we are given time to linger in the emptiness so we may find what it is we truly want going forward. It’s important to honor the past and let it go. It serves us to hang out in this in-between time in order to let our soul’s desires to sift to the surface.

To let go is to know something else is coming. When we can finally let go, it’s because we trust ourselves, Nature, Spirit, the future. To let go is to trust Life.


If you’d like to delve into this liminal space of letting go and the dreaming that follows, sign up for Honor the Past, Dream the Future – A Seasons of the Goddess Workshop here.