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Thursday, February 10, 2011

Living in Autumn

For a while now I have been straining against the classic sociological, mythology based female triumvirate of maiden/mother/crone. Now that I am not actively mothering, and really haven’t been for ten years or so am I really a crone?  Surely not, I am more fit, active and healthy than I was during much of my mothering years having finally found balance with diet, exercise, meditation, and the grace that can come with a life well lived.  As I considered what other paradigm might better explain this time of life I was struck with the metaphor of the seasons. If spring is childhood and summer is the rich, full, expanding world of younger adulthood and active parenting, then this is my autumn. 

With reflection and the search for meaning amidst metaphor, I am flooded with images of autumn and thrilled to consider that it is, for me, a time of the greatest beauty. Driving recently from our home in Taos through the canyon to the south, I was thunderstruck by the magnificence of the trees at their fullest yellow against the backdrop of the northern New Mexico landscape of scraggly pinon and sage. These trees are at their most beautiful and glowing with an energy that is undeniable.  I like this metaphor so much more than crone. This is the richest time of life, this is when I am my most beautiful, vibrating an energy of presence and power. This is when I can harvest what I have been sowing these many years, the fruits of a richly lived life.  This is a time of action, yet yielding, a time of potent beauty and great vitality and abundance. 

Autumn is a time of transition, as is every stage of nature and of life – one to be embraced, treasured, enjoyed, and at times simply endured, for in no time is there a period without sorrow and challenge. These times can still, however, make us grateful for the times of joy, for the simplest of pleasures, those rays of light that lead us through those moments of darkness.  In gratitude, I can weather times of sadness with the great understanding that an open and loving heart leaves itself open to pain, but for me there is no other way. Living fully, with loving intention toward all my actions is the only way to fully enjoy each season of my life.  Let us take every day as it is offered, each season as it is awarded – as there is beauty in each one to be cherished and celebrated.