Autumn Eyes
Lynne Elwinger, O.C.D.
Crisp, cool days, deep blue skies, and crackling leaves underfoot, usher in autumn. She dances onto the seasonal stage with bright orange, gold and red highlights flashing in her ever-darkening brown/black hair. Who can resist applauding her joyful arrival performance?! Someone who knows that autumn is my favorite season of the year, asked me why that is. The answer was not ready in one sentence on the tip of my tongue, much to my surprise.
As I reflected on the question, the many textures and shades of meaning of all the autumns of my life thus far, began arising within me. Each year something different has come to the fore, I discovered. This year’s autumn months are heralded by a compelling call to simplify, to return to the physical and spiritual basics, the essentials in life. The call sounds through me with a clarity as sharp as the cool night air. I feel deeply the desire to return to the ground of my being, to experience my own leaf-fall return to the earth in which my soul seed was originally planted and nurtured. Our autumn saints, St. Teresa and St. Therese, reinforce that call to let go of all that can be set aside, so we may more clearly focus on the path we’re asked to follow in simplicity of life and heart.
A Time For Stepping Back
Amazed by the strength of this inner longing suddenly springing up in my life and prayer, I reflected further on its origin. Perhaps it is a response to all the events happening in my personal life, the community’s life and on the world scene right now. Autumn gifts us with a time for stepping back, for clarifying values, for assessing the year’s experiences and opening to new perspectives. Everything looks different once the leaves are off the trees. I love autumn in the same way I love the desert, or writing that crisply compresses maximum meaning into a minimum of words. In all these instances, the true essentials stand out in uncluttered surroundings. This altered way of seeing, so characteristic of the fall of the year, has in itself revealed glimpses of soul landscapes that have been hidden from our ordinary sight. For me, autumn always has a hunger for holiness, for wholeness, hidden within it.
While spring and summer boast lively growth and expansive styles, autumn is the beginning of a pulling back of those extravagantly broadcast energies. The sap is returning to the roots, nourishing and growing them for next year’s outward thrust. It is a time for taking stock, sorting out the truly essential from the recyclables and throwaways. Later autumn has a refreshing solitude atmosphere about it. Unfortunately, without vigilance and determination to stay within that inward focused capsule, we can rapidly succumb to the frenzy associated with the upcoming Christmas season that starts earlier every year. But, as the life of our bodies depends on our breathing out, as well as breathing in, our spiritual life needs that as well. If we want to allow into ourselves all that God is offering us, we have to first empty ourselves of everything that is taking up unnecessary space. Autumn is a good time for making room, and creating the space and time for an inward migration of soul. Fall housecleaning has its place on a spiritual as well as a physical level.
Our Often Neglected Inner Work
Once the rhythm of inward looking/experiencing balances outward expressions/and experiences, a stability and peace comes into our everyday living. Regardless of the time of year, we can look with autumn eyes to our often-neglected inner world and draw from it a source of strength and wisdom for whatever comes our way.
Sr. Lynne Thérèse Elwinger of the Resurrection O.C.D.