The season of letting go has come around on the cosmic wheel once again. I will soon release this year’s crop of golden leaves that soaked up the sun and fed me all summer. It is the time of the waning year, the waning moon. Time to let go.

Grandmother Cottonwood, golden leaf

I must release my beautiful crown of leaves that shimmered in the breeze through sunlight and shadow, moonlight and midsummer heat. They will not needed during the cold dark months.

Releasing, surrendering, letting go – good practice for the final act of letting go that all living creatures must experience – a rehearsal for death, the great transition.

I bow to the cycles of life and death, to the inevitable. I make ready for winter, withdraw my attention from outward things, pull my awareness inward, down to my roots as my sap cools and subsides.

I will soon be ready for my winter’s rest, my dreaming time. There will be nothing to grasp hold of, no responsibilities, nothing to do or be or have, no agenda, no leaves to maintain. All the trappings of summer – released.

I may seem inert, even dead to those who pass by, yet deep inside, in my roots, below the surface of the soil, my inner hearth fire embers glow, ready to spring into life once again after the long winter nights give way to spring.