Samhain Full Moon

Sweeping the Westacre drive was hard work. It's a long drive. The broom was heavy. The leaves were damp and sticking to the floor. My back complained. But I was determined to pick up those leaves, so I went at it on pure willpower. I attacked those leaves with all I'd got. It's my default way of doing jobs like that.

Of course, I wasn't enjoying it. I was barely noticing the little piles of gold and russet that were forming on the drive, celebrating the closing of the growing cycle with such beauty. I was holding my breath with each effort, competing with myself to see how fast I could do it, and getting cranky in the process.

This is not the way I want to work at Westacre. In this place, soon to be my home, I want to live and work alongside the beings that surround me. I want to make it an adventure in connection and harmonious co-operation. And you can't do that when every muscle in your body is resisting the reality of what is here and now, or when your mind is already thinking about when you'll finish the job. That kind of attitude immediately disconnects you from your surroundings and traps you inside yourself. It's a lonely place to be.

That default resistance is my body's memory of a past where I felt constantly judged and never appreciated. But that is decades ago, and I don't have to identify with those wounds any more. I can leave the past behind and choose to live now.

Of course, given our plans for the year ahead, I spend quite a lot of my time living in the future. I'm dreaming and planning and thinking ahead. But as I sweep the drive, I don't have to set myself a time limit, or rush to get it finished. I can let go of it, trust that it will get done, and choose to enjoy those autumn colours.

Letting go of past and future is no easy thing, though. That experience of time passing is fundamental to our sense of self as human beings. We craft our identities from what has happened in the past and where we are going in the future. Letting go of that, and living in the beauty of just this moment, is like dying a little. It dissolves our edges, makes it less clear where I end and the world outside begins. Our ego doesn't like that. It holds on for dear life to its history and its plans, to a sense of control. And it makes us cranky.

At this time of Samhain, as the trees let go of the year gone by, and drop their leaves and their seeds to the welcoming earth, it is a little easier for us to do the same. We can release our grip a little, become fuzzier around our edges, and let the world in. We can choose to be at home in the present moment, and revel in the beauty of autumn.