Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
If I could let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one,
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation,
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
and call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure — if I can let you go.
– Mae Sarton
I’ve been picking rosehips…
What else can I do? Clearly the time for letting go has come, though the sun still blazes hot against my skin and everything else is still on fire from its touch too…there is no doubt. The beautiful wild rosebuds of summer are gone. And I am not sorry. They have left behind their richest gift. They have become something new…a form that holds all the secrets of all that has passed since they emerged in the spring as something soft and pink and fresh. They have become what holds the treasure, and they carry the new seeds. They remind me, as I surrender like everything in nature is beginning to until it seems that only bare branches will remain in my heart…of hope.
They seem, the rosehips, to explode from the landscape with their passionate red. They have no shame…why should they? They have known summer…
As the fall equinox arose the energies were literally dizzying and hard often to bear. The pitch would intensify, and then soften as a new pressure would start to build like a hurricane you can see coming from the distance. This is the story of our times, but the week or so before and after equinoxes and solstices can be especially intense, and this one was no exception. Many people felt physically unwell, with old stressors and issues returning in the body. Others felt emotionally pressed right up against it…triggered at every turn and flaring up over what might have usually felt small. Leading up to this equinox was like trying to crawl through a tunnel that got smaller and smaller. And because it has just passed it is as if we are still in the tightest of spots…but at least now we are climbing out and it gets wider again as we go. And as we finally exit the passage, we will be in a new place…within ourselves and in our lives. For equinoxes and solstices are portals of transformation, always powerful.
So while again things are stripped away…things I may not feel ready to let go of, or wish I could understand before I do…I pick rosehips. For they remind me that the greatest beauty always lays ahead. They speak to me of the ripeness and fruition that only letting go brings. They whisper of the secrets that only seeds know…and won’t tell. We have to be there when they reveal themselves. We have to be there for their becoming. We have to know that every part of the cycle, every season, is a part of that becoming. They are all the bearers of the fruit.
So it is harvest time. And I am letting go of all the fruit I bore from spring’s first glimmers in my heart. I am letting go of all the wishes and the wants and the hopes. I am letting them fly. The fruits are falling everywhere…some tasted, some never reached…but never the last.
There will be more, if we let go of whatever we are holding on to. Life will surprise us…always. And we will feel lighter again, even as the light is decreasing. And we will walk barefooted, and with empty, open hands.
Love, Jennifer
