"I wish I knew the beauty of leaves falling.
To whom are we beautiful when we go?"
Excerpt from "Three In Transition" by David Ignatow
And to whom are we beautiful as we go? I love this poem. This poem seems to point to the fact that even in our failing, even in our demise, there is a part of creation and therefore a part of ourselves that can grant a magnificence to any loss. Such a beautiful concept. Such a bittersweet truth. And perhaps this is why Autumn is so colorful: it is the opulent funeral procession of the death of so much. It is the rush of fireworks before the quiet stillness of winter.
There has been so much that has changed this year, not only because of COVID, but also because life's only constant is that it's in change. Things are meant to pass away, including leaves, including people and including old ways of doing things. There's no business as usual in the roller coaster of life.
Yet this inevitable demise points to something much more beautiful. It may be difficult in the moment yet will unfailingly create the conditions for a new birth in your continual upleveling of consciousness.
Many of the Hindu statues tell stories. The Dancing Shiva is a story-telling icon depicting Shiva, the creator of the universe, and illustrates the five acts of Shiva.
The concept is the same whether you call the creator, Shiva, God, the Universe, or anything else. In this statue (seen in the background of the above pic), these 5 acts are depicted by his many arms, one of which is celebrating creation, another that is sustaining his creation, another is allowing death, and another that is not only inviting things back to life, but to live again with a higher consciousness than before.
This statue reminds us that our job is to allow Shiva to lead in this dance of life, to follow along as we are slowly refined into greater beings. It reminds us that death is a part of life and with a broader perspective, we can, to some degree, appreciate it as a necessary part of the cycle.
Mary Oliver writes about learning to accept death and loss in her poem, Maker of All Things, Even Healings. I love the title of the poem because it suggests that the healing, the bringing back to life for a fuller measure of life as in the Dancing Shiva, comes only after accepting death which she does so humbly.
Maker of All Things, Even Healings
by Mary Oliver
All night
under the pines
the fox
moves through the darkness
with a mouthful of teeth
and a reputation for death
which it deserves.
In the spicy
villages of the mice
he is famous,
his nose
in the grass
is like an earthquake,
his feet
on the path
is a message so absolute
that the mouse, hearing it,
makes himself
as small as he can
as he sits silent
or, trembling, goes on
hunting among the grasses
for the ripe seeds.
Maker of All Things,
including appetite,
including stealth,
including the fear that makes
all of us, sometime or other,
flee for the sake
of our small and precious lives,
let me abide in your shadow--
let me hold on
to the edge of your robe
as you determine
what you must let be lost
and what will be saved.
As we celebrate the coming of fall, may we, too, remember the beauty of leaves falling, the beauty and magnificence of this amazing dance in which we are all twirling, living, growing, dying, and being reborn into something greater.
May you see your journey through many cycles of death and rebirth as beautiful as the panoply of changing leaves.
If you are experiencing grief due to any sort of loss, may I suggest watching/listening to my free Yoga Nidra for Grief practice.