We’re in the last week of October. We just moved to a new town and today it’s snowing so much that schools are closed and the airport is shut down. The wisdom of Autumn in Colorado and many other places in our global community is asking us to become more still and quiet. We’re being invited to understand the immeasurable mystery of this ‘soulful season’, accept and awaken to its’ music, and again discover the wonder and wisdom that’s present in every season of our lives. Infinite beauty is now painted white.

Sitting at the desk I’ve had for decades now located in a place I’ve never lived before is an immeasurable experience I’m just beginning to understand. It’s a kind of ‘magical mystery tour‘ that keeps showing up to help me grow, change and rearrange in ways I never imagined. Each day becomes an opportunity to be more quiet, more still, more awake, aware and attentive to what goes on inside, around and through me. It offers opportunities to do the work that changes lives, perspectives and understandings. 

For so many years and even decades I thought that I had the answers to most of the questions that came up for me and others. If not, I’d find the necessary references, memorize them and say that I understood. The problem however, was that I was not understanding; I was over-standing. I had the intellectual data but not the experiential reality that comes through living it. Over time, there were awakenings that helped me see how much I didn’t know and that I could only know through my not knowing. 

Being at my father’s bedside when he drew his last breath and his message to me after he left his body was an experience that transformed my theories into a lived awakened presence. The Essence, Soul, Substance of who we are doesn’t die, it simply migrates to an immeasurable reality we’ve forgotten. Communicating with animals in a language I didn’t know also changed how I saw life along with extraordinary syncronicities that put me in places and spaces I could hardly imagine. Quieting the mind opens new worlds!

Autumn wisdom teaches us to wonder, wait and be willing to stay open to new ways of being and belonging. It teaches us to let go of what we think we know and open to the nakedness of losing our leaves, our protective mental coverings to become something new. Autumn wisdom invites us to celebrate the many storms that come at seemingly inappropriate times; to awaken to the growth and change that comes by slowing way down, relaxing, getting quiet and becoming a transformative snowflake when needed.

Many of us live our lives as if nothing dark, difficult and unpredictable will ever happen to us. We live in the should, must, ought and have to world we think we want and when the unexpected happens, we rail against the storm, go into a downward spiral that dissociates us from the infinite possibilities that come from all events. The hidden gifts are not taken into consideration; the suffering continues along with the inner darkness. We move to anger, denial, bargaining and depression until we finally wake up to our own self inflicted misery and opt for an acceptance which allows for a new abundant life.

Autumn wisdom ushers us into a deep understanding of the immeasurable and seeming difficulty we experience. Through quieting and stilling the ever active ego mind, what has been called the ‘false self’ that always wants what it wants when it wants it; we access the realm of mystery, the True Self, the Divine Energy of the Cosmos that creates and sustains everything. From this space within, a new clarity is accessed that helps us see the possibilities that can come from our new situation. Insight is clarified!

Through this insight, we begin to see, perceive, a new pathway. As we give ourselves to this new trajectory, believe, we begin to receive the necessary energy that moves us forward in a new direction. As we receive this energy we achieve new ways of being and doing which open new possibilities: Our lives change. We move beyond the darkness and impossible into the new light of what is possible. While engaging this transformational process, we begin to under-stand the immeasurable, the miracle of Life and the abundance it continually offers us. The wonder of transformation transforms us as ‘Little by little we accomplish much!‘ We participate in creating our new reality. . . . 

• Reflect on the shoulds, musts and oughts that keep you stuck in a negative place. Notice how you project these energies onto people, places, situations and things. . . .
• Quiet your mind, become still and see through the situation into how it could be a portal into a whole different way of being. Explore how the loss could become a gain, how the alienation could become a process for a new communion, how the storm could create a new calm. . . .
• Notice what you’re trying to measure and why. Reframe your measurement to include all and everything that could help you move through the difficulty and create its opposite. Perceive the wanted outcome. Believe in the possible and give yourself to it in thought, word, and action. Receive the necessary energy by opening to it through stilling, quiet visualization/meditation. Achieve the outcome step by step and notice the progressive energy that continues to draw you through the portal into the New by giving thanks for each step that leads you through. . . .
• Smile more and more along the way. It’s part of the necessary energy. Feel it. Be it!