The Lessons in the Leaves

Fall isn’t everyone’s favorite time of year, but it is mine, and maybe for a few reasons you never expected. It’s a break from hot weather. It’s harvest season (which is a great thing for a farmer). Its colors and flavors and smells of wet leaves. There’s lessons in those leaves, and I want to share them with you today.

Lesson 1: Let It Go

The biggest lesson fall can give us is that there is a time to let it go.

My walnut trees put out leaves in the spring and those leaves and the tree enter into a beautiful relationship. The leaves function as a solar farm and help the tree grow, and in return the tree gives the leaves nutrients and water so they can stay alive.

But, in the fall the tree is done. It’s exhausted and needs to rest. As long as the leaves are on the tree it will have to work. So, the tree pulls back and the leaves change colors as they die and drop to the ground.

You, my friend, need to learn when to let go. What has you exhausted? What is draining the life from you? Identify those things in your life and then let them go!

Lesson 2: Embrace the Cyclical Nature of Time

A tree, and a year, follow a distinct cycle we call seasons. It starts in the springtime with the first push of buds. The summertime is a time of tremendous work and growth. The fall is the time of harvesting the fruits and work of summer. And the winter is a time of rest and recovery.

Follow the blueprint nature has given you as you navigate your day, your month, or even your year. Start with the spring, when you are gathering the skills necessary to complete your task. Move into the summer, your period of hard work. Embrace the harvest, the fruits of YOUR labor. And give yourself a chance to rest and recover during your period of winter.

The cyclical nature of time allows us to embrace the seasons of life. Take our loss. Linear time tells us our pain will be this way forever because time is a flat line with point A (birth) and point B (death). Pretty grim. Cyclical time reminds us that this is a season and IT WILL PASS.

Lesson 3: Take the Time To Rest

Do the trees freak out when they release the leaves? Do they worry and fret about how they will survive next year? No. They just do the next thing; go dormant.

Dormancy is a time of rest. It’s sleep, and recovery. As a farmer, I make sure they get water and nutrients. In nature, they do the same but with rain patterns, snow and composted materials on the ground.

Lesson 4: Springtime Will Return

BE LIKE A TREE! If you’ve given it you all, celebrate and REST. Shed the things that are draining you. Simplify. Cut back. Fuel yourself with nourishing foods. And finally, honor that time instead of beating yourself up for taking it. Springtime WILL return.

And in the spring, after a season of rest, they come back even more beautiful than before. So can you.

You can do this, and I’m here to help.

Julie