As we are approaching autumn, we prepare to spend more time at home, making our homes feel warmer and cozier in order for us to enjoy the cold winter months inside. I am still much like the ant in the story (in a modern way, that is) as I like to prepare my house but also my mind for the season to come. Fortunately, two of my great inspirators and teachers organize workshops to mark the transition into the new season. They couldn’t have picked a better Sunday for their autumn workshop. Hello September in the Netherlands! You can always count on a good shower to get you soaking wet while biking from one end of the city to the other. While I was still drying and warming up, we did an inner smile meditation and like always when meditating I could feel the muscle along my spine on my right side getting painful. And as always I tried to breathe into the muscle and let go of whatever tension, grief or anxiety I am apparently holding onto. Unfortunately, that never works. And it didn’t this time.

TLC

Wait for it, though. One of the teachers encouraged us to not just focus on letting go, which is what autumn tells us to do. Just think one step back: what fuels our energy so we’re ready for the colder months? Before diving into autumn and deciding what we no longer need, we might do ourselves right by looking at the past year and at what it has brought us. It is only when we know what we have, that we can decide what we no longer need and would like to leave behind.

I found myself thinking about the cricket and the ant. All my life I had focused on the hard working ant. Completing two Masters Studies, always working fulltime while at the same time managing what life throws at you (hello pandemic with two children under 4). It is not in my nature to care for myself. And – as strange as it may sound – I am not much of a caretaker for other people either. Of course, I make sure that my children eat healthy food, wear clean and ironed clothes and that they go to bed on time. However, more than this, I like to just spend time with them. Going to the playground in the nearby park, reading books with them or just enjoying a walk and stopping for coffee and apple juice. And it is precisely this time that I have so little of.

Until this year. I quit my job after 14 years of working for the same company (which was an act of selflove to begin with). And then all of a sudden I found myself with a lot of time before starting a new job, more than I had had since I started working in 2004. I thoroughly decluttered and cleaned my house and read five books, which was nice, but mostly, I spent my time doing what I love most. I went to the library with my oldest daughter, where we got to see life size figurines of all the heroes of her favorite children books. I took her to gymnastics classes and watched her become better at it every week. I enjoyed my youngest daughter being the center of attention at her music classes as she danced in the middle of the music room and after two classes knew how to ‘play’ all the instruments. As I was going through all these beautiful moments with my girls, I realized I had I never wondered where the ant got her food from. All I saw was her hard work. But you need to able to harvest, otherwise your hard work isn’t worth anything. This year I finally had the guts to leave my company and choose my own path in life. I thought it might be worth a try to give that muscle a little bit of TLC as well. I imagined giving it softness, care, a gentle stroke. And – you guessed it – the pain slowly disappeared into the background and I was finally able to enjoy the rest of the meditation.

Feeling grounded in life

Come September I always get that nostalgic feeling of coming back to school. This year I especially felt that specific energy of leaving summer behind and starting over, since I started a new job in the very same week that my oldest started school after the holidays. However, in the protestant tradition of the Netherlands we don’t make much of it. “Just act normal, you’ll act crazy enough” is a Dutch saying that pretty much sums up our approach to, well, basically everything. The French however have a tradition that I envy a bit. Every year at the end of August they get ready for La Rentrée, the return to school mostly, but also to work, after the summer months. It was only this year, when I actually stood still and had the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of summer, that I could fully comprehend the value of this tradition. To not just mark the transition from one season to the next, but to also look back and enjoy what we have achieved, in order for us to feel grounded in this life.

In yoga and in meditation it is very common to start your practice with an intention. My intention for my autumn workshop practice was initially to let go, but it was only when I realized I needed to focus more on self-care, on the things that really make me happy, that I could enjoy the benefits of the workshop to the fullest. The workshop taught me that before autumn starts we need to ground. Grounding will give us a sense of belonging, as one of the teachers pointed out. And wasn’t it exactly that feeling of belonging that had been lacking in my life for so long? For too long I had been focused on looking at what else was around. A new job opportunity, a bigger work challenge, more responsibility would surely give me a sense of belonging to an organization? A bigger house in a better location with more rooms to decorate would make me feel more at home? I’m not going to tell you that you should just enjoy the little things in life, because although that is probably true, that’s not the point I’m trying to make. What I got from all of this is that my intention in life to let go just hadn’t been appropriate as it merely kept me floating around, if that makes sense. Instead my intention could be to adhere to life a little bit more. Passing on life myself to my two daughters is the single most important thing that has brought me to understanding this valuable lesson.

The apple that falls of the tree

I’ve learned this year that grounding for me means spending time with my girls. Grounding is not something we do on occasion, it is an activity and an intention that requires our full devotion throughout our lives, perhaps until the day we leave this life behind. So before Autumn Equinox moved in, I decided to spontaneously undertake a nice activity with my two girls. Two years ago my sister and I visited an orchard that opens up to the public for plucking apples and pears. At the time I was heavily pregnant with my youngest while the oldest was only just old enough to be able to reach the fruit hanging from the tree. I remembered just how much I enjoyed the last sunrays of the year warm upon my face, the beautiful colors in the orchard and our girls running around, freely tasting the apples as they went. I thought of how lovely it would be to start a new tradition and so we went the three of us, out into the orchard on the last formal day of (late) summer. I so enjoyed looking at my girls and how they went about this activity in completely different ways. The oldest doesn’t walk, she runs, and in doing so covers at least twice the distance that I do. She quickly picks up some apples and after 20 minutes or so, yells: done! Whereas the youngest, who still walks like a little duck, has no intention of keeping up with her sisters tempo, observes everything, from the apples and the trees, to the insects and birds that inhabit the orchard, carefully picking just one apple, before she sits down on the ground to enjoy it.

My intention for this autumn and the next couple of seasonal changes ahead is to be less like the ant. Yes, I will still prepare for the colder days ahead by working hard to prepare my home. But more than that I’ve come to realize how grounding the experience of marking the transition from one season to the next can be and just how important it is to spend time doing so. I simply loved our apple picking trip and the fact that it is something you can typically do around this time of year before having to wait another year to be able to do it again. I hope that it is this awareness that I can bring on to my daughters.

Many thanks to @dunja.zabunovic and @ta.mi.nu for organizing their lovely workshops every season that have introduced me into 5 element theory and bring me inspiration every time.