Autumn and the Gift of Endings
Where I live, we're receiving the beauty of the summer ending and unfolding into autumn's emergence. 🍂
I notice the cooling temperatures, darkness gathering earlier in the day, and the leaves turning colour - some already falling to the ground.
On Fall Equinox, nature around me expresses an abundance of maturity, harvest, and endings - almost in contradiction to the institutional energy of beginnings.
I feel endings in my life, too: some long-distance friendships and collegial connections are evolving and familiar patterns are ebbing. I felt twinges of rejection and grief at moments and needed to tend to those - within myself and within trusted relationships.
But I’m also experiencing new beginnings: we’re building 'in-person community' here in the Kawarthas and recently hosted a wonderful neighbourhood barbeque.
Are you feeling this seasonal transitional energy, too - the twinned dance of endings and beginnings, beginnings and endings?
Gearing up for fall often invites a reevaluation of priorities and capacities and thus ushers in change - for ourselves, our routines and relationships.
Witnessing myself and clients, sometimes change flows, accompanied by excitement and alignment - we welcome it.
But as often, transitions are clunky: tender, uncertain and threaded with sadness as we feel our way through, sensing what is outgrown and what wants to emerge.
If change moves through our lives unnamed and unacknowledged, there can be added discomfort or disorientation: "I'm not quite sure why I feel down, irritated or like something is amiss."
We might minimize or struggle to articulate losses and grief that are true for us, especially those that are small, subtle, ambiguous or not culturally recognized.
I'm also noticing regenerative life cycles: how seeds emerge in many plants just as they mature and prepare to transition into death or a fallow period.
What an incredible paradox - and I'm reflecting on this in our lives.
Endings can be so painful and so generative.
So often, my temptation is to resist endings and the accompanying feelings of grief or futility at what I cannot control.
But when we are brave and willing to consciously tend to endings, then so often we can tap into grace, mystery, a sense of communion with Life.
As painful as endings can be, we can hold them with reverence.
Sometimes the work of endings in our inner landscape is deeply interior, contained and private.
However, we often need community, ritual, and collective sacred practices to hold us as we feel, grieve and soften into endings.
If these themes resonate with you, I encourage you to check out an upcoming retreat that I'll be co-facilitating with my dear friend, Kristen Roderick.
As we move more deeply into fall, we'll be offered further opportunity to connect with darkness, dying, and death.
If you want support to relate to these energies with attention, care and collective wisdom, please join us.
More Resources for Endings:
Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes: this classic book by William Bridges provides people strategies for coping with difficult, painful and confusing times. Receive guidance to navigate the ongoing cycles of endings, liminal in-between chapters and beginnings.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, by Francis Weller. This beautiful book honors endings, loss, grief and the sacred terrain of descent, offering solace and wisdom that are not often easily found in dominant western cultures.
Sometimes we need music to meet and carry us through loss
So, Fall Equinox blessings to you - may you gently move through this transitional season, opening your heart to endings and their gifts.
For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, I wish you: more sleep. Your hands wrapped around warm mugs. Bowls of soup. Cuddles with humans, pets, or blankets and water bottles. Sweaters. Lots of hygge. Good books and shows.
I'll be right there in those vibes with you. 🍂
P.S. If you’re curious about how coaching could support you in navigating endings and change, please set up a free 60-minute consult with me to explore your options. I’d love to hear from you.
Nicola Holmes is a Change Coach who helps people turn their potent questions, dreams and goals into inspired action. With warmth and wisdom, she’ll guide you to untangle constraints and cultivate courage to create a more aligned and joyful life. She has a BASc in Human Development, an MEd in Adult Learning and spent two decades working in the non-profit sector. Along with coaching for 15 years, she’s mama to two spirited kids and devoted to Buddhism. Having recently experienced long-Covid and a move, she brings empathy to others exploring how they’ve changed and who they’re becoming in turbulent times. Check out Nicola @nicolaholmescoach or join the email party for encouragement to fuel the changes you want (including free coaching opportunities!).