Setting Your Power Free - October 2022

"Set your roots deep and pull the sugar from the sky into your soul, winter is coming and you will need that strength to find peace in the dark and nurture all those incredible doings of spring, the field is not fallow it is rich beyond imagining awaiting the seeds, the bulbs, the intentions, and freshly tilled desires of your heart. It seems like you’re letting go but dear one you are setting your power free" -Kate

This fall is quiet and still here, just starting its fresh chill, the colors are magnificent like faceted jewels lit from within. Without strong winds I've been watching the leaves fall one by one to earth, meeting the earth so softly, as if with a soft sigh.  I have a favorite tree, one that I have loved to sit under for years, it is a grand Plane tree, enormous, with a large spreading canopy and monstrous maple-shaped leaves.  Its trunk is thick and heavy and cool and smooth, and when I give it a loving pat, which I often do, I imagine it is like patting an elephant, requiring a firm and steady hand.  I love the feel of the bark, its weight, its heaviness under my hands, and the lack of sound it makes under my hand, there is no hollowness, it is solid and unyielding from its center to its circumference. I couldn't tell you how many hours I've spent under this tree, I know it well, I've been under its naked branches in the deep of winter, watched it unfurl its ginormous wings in the spring, enjoyed the coolness of its shade in the heat of summer, but fall, fall is a magnificent ritual. 

This ritual of sugaring up, drinking up the air, and sending this nourishment deep, so deep into the roots, is an astonishing act of trust.  This magnificent tree doesn't think twice about letting go, about releasing its awe-inspiring leaves because it must know on a cellular level that as they fall they are taken back to Source, traveling through the primordial cycle, taken apart, and one might think 'denatured' but really they are fully and completely 'natured' in this process.

We too can find our way back to our primordial cycle of life, and return to Source again and again.  While we don't have leaves we have experience, we have memories, we have the landscape of our emotions, the tendency of our thoughts, and the constant hum of our beliefs.

In the practice of Yoga Nidra and deep meditations, one of the primary purposes is to release these old undigested experiences and mental expressions, called Samskaras.  Letting them go to free up the many layers of our being, to let them fall and be digested, to become the compost, the fertilizer, the sugar, needed to nourish new experiences.  During this process of letting go, digesting, and metabolizing our Samskaras, we find our way back to Source, to our roots, to the quiet and dark stillness of the heart.

What seems like surrender, falling, and letting go, is really setting your power free.

Reflections

Find a quiet spot under a beautiful tree, let your eyes soften, wait until your eyes catch a falling leaf, and trace it to the ground.  Notice if there was a sound when it touched the earth.  Did it take a circuitous path?  Did it travel away from its Mother tree and scatter in the wind to complete its cycle?  Just notice.

Be here as a witness, watching this cycle of life, and the continuous givingness of life.

Can you imagine the roots of the tree anticipating the joyous return of this leaf, back into Source? In your mind's eye see the roots of this tree and the thin veil of earth between this and the leaf where it lay. Cultivate gratitude for both the complexity and the spontaneous simplicity of this process. Witness this as nothing short of a miracle, this front-row seat to cosmic order, this coming from Source and returning to Source, this coming from Love and returning to Love.

Gently close your eyes and find your breath. Breathe like a tree. What thoughts, beliefs, and old undigested experiences can you let fall to the earth?  What does it feel like in your body and mind to free up this energy and navigate this cycle of life, easily letting go, and deeply nourishing, this return to Source?

OM & Blessings,  Kate