I’ve often turned towards nature and the pagan views on what lessons nature has for me, and for all of us. And aren’t we in the middle of some difficult days! The pandemic has impacted so much of our lives and the worst of it is that most of it is beyond our ability to control – and that is frightening, isn’t it?

But what if

what if there was another way of looking at it?

What if we looked at all that is beyond our control as just that and

let go,

simply let go

of our need to be in control of this pandemic, of our need for perfectionism, of our need to be right; of our sense of urgency, of valuing quantity over quality, of our scarcity mentality, of the “good”, “bad”, binary view of life, of our fear of doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing.

Like the trees that are letting go of their leaves, we too are invited into a process of letting go of a worldview that teaches us to look at the world in a particular way – a view where there is only one way of doing things and all of the others are strange, weird, quaint, but definitely not the way.

I recently took a supervision course and we talked about what is called the thought model – an idea where what we think about the world, a person, a way of being, a way of life, ends up being true for us. Some circles call this confirmation bias. And we go on living our lives in this way until something happens where we begin to question that way of life.

This time of autumn, of letting go, invites us to let go of what we perceive to be our reality, to begin to question it and to surrender to a period of not knowing, of discernment, of deep listening to the renewing springs of the Spirit deep in the ground of our being.

I have found that when I actually do let go and surrender to the dark, quiet places within, I am gifted with the opportunity for deep transformation. Because you see, death comes in cycles. In the ancient ways, the practice of letting go is closely linked with transformation, because from the point of view of the soul, death is the beginning of a new journey. Death and life are simply revolving doors between the two worlds.

So, I invite you this month, as we engage with the question of what it means to be a people of deep listening, to listen deeply to your soul on how you have been shaped to see the world and begin to discern what no longer serves you and what you want to let go of. As you do so, take time this month in the garden or outdoors with a plant, clearing away the dead leaves, mixing them in with the mulch, symbolically clearing away those thought patterns. Clearing the way for new growth when the time is right.

May it be so!