Autumn & existentialism - part two

Walking down the street one October morning I was a few paces behind a little boy and his mum on the way to school, “I don’t like it when the leaves fall off, mummy” he said, the trace of tears in his voice. I wanted to hear her reply but I needed to cross the street and it would have been awkward to linger behind them, so I’ll never know what she said. What would you say? Can you empathise with the boy’s sadness?

He was only about 6 years old but he understood the falling leaves to be connected to loss. I’d have liked to ask him what he thought it meant that the trees were losing their leaves. I’d have liked to honour that sadness, as well as showing him the leaf buds that are already present on many trees this time of year, next year’s Spring already in wait. The cycle will continue. The melancholy I wrote about in part one is a natural part of this cycle too, not something to deny or attempt to erase but a fact of life just as much as the joys of Spring.

Through my nature connection practice I have become more attuned to the gradual changes in the seasons; autumn no longer catches me off guard like a Halloween trick, making me panic about how quickly life is speeding by. Noticing a new flower in my garden, monitoring the time of sunsets, observing a favourite tree every day…these things slow time down and make me less anxious about it’s passing.

As Albus Dumbledore famously says in Harry Potter, “fear of the name increases fear of the thing itself” and it’s certainly the case that in our culture (I’m speaking as a Brit in 2024 as that’s my frame of reference) we don’t speak much about death, and consequently the subject is cloaked in a dark layer of fear. As I wrote in part one, Autumn confronts us with death in a very beautiful way, allowing us to observe the gradual process of dying one seed head, dried flower and tawny leaf at a time. The inhabitants of Britain and Ireland haven’t always been shy about speaking about death and dying though, as the ancient Celts embraced the concept more openly. In fact, the celebration of Samhain (pronounced sow-in, or sow-een) that takes place on the night of 31st October centres on the belief that on that night the ‘veil between worlds’ is thin, allowing us to be close to our ancestors, as well as allowing otherworldly sprites and creatures to roam the land, causing havoc and scaring people.

You can see from this description that Samhain is the origin of what we call Halloween. It was a time to honour loved ones who have passed away, perhaps by creating an altar with images and candles. There’s some similarities here with Mexico’s Day Of The Dead celebration, which also brings the topic of mortality into everyone’s consciousness and bridges a gap between the living and the dead.

Thinking and speaking about death in ways that normalise it are very healthy and can reduce anxiety around the topic. I think of the falling leaves of Autumn as nature’s memento mori, for me it’s comforting to remember that I am part of nature too and that in nature there are no endings, only cycles.

A male client of mine describes looking out his window at a tree that seems to have lost all its leaves quite suddenly, “like in a cartoon” he observes. He reflects on losses in his life that have felt like this at the time, only to be new beginnings in painful disguise. “It sounds odd to say, but that was the best thing that could have happened to me” he says of one major change he’s dealt with in therapy, “I know now that it had to happen so that Spring could come.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.  

Without the release and rest of Autumn and Winter the trees and plants could not bloom again in the Spring. Without the ‘death’ in Autumn there could be no rebirth. It is death that creates the possibility of growth; the fallen leaves turning to compost to nourish the soil, the soil being the fertile belly of the earth. Which brings us back to the Pagan celebration of Samhain, the Celtic new year – for the Celts, who lived in line with the rhythms of nature, the year began in darkness, just as a seed in the soil or embryo in the womb.

So my message to you is to allow the season to bring up the big questions and the big feelings. It is all part of natures cycles, which include you too. But also, don’t forget to find the lightness, silliness and joy of the season too; go kick up some leaves, dress up in a daft costume and carve a pumpkin.

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

Reflection:

What was your conditioning around talking about death growing up?

How can you balance light and dark in your life this season?