Settling into the Season: Orienting to the Energies of Fall
Summer is gone, and Fall is here.
Darker days and longer nights are becoming our new rhythms.
As the Earth's tilt brings us less sunlight here in the Northern Hemisphere, our bodies and our psyches are adjusting to this transition. I believe that our psychological, emotional, and spiritual lives are meant to transition with the seasons of Nature.
As Autumn arrives, deciduous trees begin breaking down chlorophyll (the bright green pigment that helps transform sunlight into food). Their leaves change color and eventually fall, and their energy shifts away from outward growth and production and towards conservation, stillness, and living off stored, underground reserves until Spring arrives.
Those of us who move with the seasons may feel called by Mother Nature to mirror her rhythms in the Fall: to conserve our energy; to bring our attention inwards; to wind down production and creation; and to make more room for rest, stillness, reflection, and being. My intention with this blog post is to support you to recognize, name, and honor how this seasonal transition is happening within you.
Pause and Reflect:
As you enter this season of slowing down and turning inward, what might be waiting beneath the surface, ready to be identified, witnessed, and explored? Are there certain kinds of support that might help you feel safer to journey into deeper places?
It is essential for our well-being to have seasons when we pull back on action, creation, and production, and carve out more space for stillness, presence, reflection, and inner study. I am certainly in this phase right now (it’s what inspired this blog post), as I navigate my own underworld journey and refine my empathic skills.
It is also essential to name the transition between seasons so that we can orient ourselves—so that we can locate ourselves in time and space. Sometimes, the simple act of pausing and naming the transition we are experiencing can create movement in places and spaces where we’ve felt stuck or stagnant.
Pause and Reflect:
Join me in naming and orienting. Place a hand on your heart and say this aloud with me: It is Fall. It is Autumn. Summer is now gone, and Fall is now here. The energies of production, action, and creation are waning, and the energies of stillness, slowness, and reflection are here. I embrace the ways that I am called to slow my pace, make more room for stillness, and attune to what’s bubbling underneath the surface.
As we make room to slow down, embrace stillness, and attune to our changing needs, we may also begin to notice habits, roles, identities, survival strategies, and/or patterns we are ready to shed. Fall naturally reveals this to us when we carve out space to listen.
May you give yourself permission and space to touch down on what is true for you.
A Ritual for Settling into the Season & Orienting to the Energies of Fall
Light a Candle & Create Space for Stillness
A candle is a symbolic invitation to enter a portal. Allow the flame to be a visual reminder that this is a moment for slowing down, turning inwards, and conserving your energy. Take a few slow, nourishing breaths.
Reach for Your Journal & Take Time to Reflect
If you love engaging all of your senses and creating a full ritual experience, you can press play on my Fall Playlist while you reflect and write:
Physical & Psychological Shifts
As my body and my psyche experience the transition into Autumn, how am I noticing these seasonal shifts within myself? (Do I feel achy? Do I feel more tired or need more sleep? Do I feel a bit ungrounded or dizzy as the weather and barometric pressure shift? Is the decreased sunlight impacting my mental, emotional, or psychological well-being in any particular way?)
What are my body and psyche asking for with this seasonal shift?
Needs, Capacities & Rhythms
Over the past month, what am I noticing myself craving more of and craving less of?
Am I feeling a natural desire to slow down, pull back, or conserve my energy? Where is this showing up?
What might it look like to honor my changing needs and capacities in this season?
What is one small shift I can make to support my changing needs and capacities?
Reflect on What You're Ready to Shed
Are there certain habits, patterns, roles, identities, or relationships I am feeling ready to shed?
What no longer serves the person I am becoming?
Are there ways of being or ways of living that no longer feel aligned with who I am becoming?
The answers to these questions may not be fully available to you yet, and that’s okay. Reflection doesn’t always bring complete clarity, but it can begin to stir energy and create movement within us. Let the clarity you do have be enough. Trust that what is available to you right now is enough for where you are in your journey.
Here's to moving with the rhythm of Nature and coming home to our true natures. 🍁
With care,
Heather
P.S. — If this blog resonates, you will love my oracle deck, Your True Nature Oracle.
P.P.S. — If you're seeking deeper 1:1 support in this season of your life, check out my therapy (CT, NY, and MT residents only!) and private coaching offerings.
