This autumn as I think about the golden canvases of foliage I am missing up north, of the crisp air above all the apple orchards and pumpkin patches I have picked from, I feel melancholy. I sense that I am losing my colors like the trees all will. I feel like I am falling, well sort of.

In trying to figure out the reasons that I feel this way, it occurs to me that it’s because I am in a time of letting go. Letting go to make room for what is to come. The fall season is a time of trees shedding their leaves, even though they are beautiful, to get ready for the next season.

And I wonder if perhaps I can just do what the trees do. Ready or not, right here, right now, Let go. Discard any worry that I don’t really fit in sometimes. Shed any doubt that there is something wrong with me when I am not invited. Drop a recent belief that just because people move on, I never mattered to them.

For today, perhaps I can allow the occasional fears to fall away. Let them drop and trust that it is simply time to lose another layer that is no longer necessary as protection against the elements of my humanness.

I am drawn to thoughts of how autumn comes in so spectacularly and goes out so barren. This magnificent season of letting go leads me to wonder. How do trees allow the transformation so gracefully, from lush and glorious to bare and exposed? They stand, strong and tall, never wavering, as one by one their leaves fall, showing their branches to the world. I wish I could let go like they do. So gracefully.

I suppose I can try. I guess, like all the trees, I can get ready for what comes next. I can believe that it is the right time to allow more to shed. Perhaps there is no need for sadness as things come and go. No reason for self doubt or for fear that the more I expose myself, the less I will be “part of.” Maybe all I need to do is trust a divine process that I can’t see and to remember that the trees, in bloom or not, never move. They stay right where they are among other trees. Sure.

I don’t suppose that as golden shapes fall from its branches, a tree spends time in sadness around what it is losing. I imagine it knows that next year, there will be more and different shades that will grace its limbs. There is no calling out to their dear colors, “No, please don’t go yet. I’m not ready. I haven’t fully processed all I needed to about you yet. And I love you.”

I think they just fall because it is time. They probably need to relax after all their photosynthesizing. Maybe they just want to rest. And as the greens and reds and yellows gather on the ground below, awaiting what comes next for them, there is a knowing up above. A new season is sure to come and with it will be more and different hues to take their place.

What a gift of trusting that nature enjoys. I want to trust like this. To believe in the plan as it unfolds, instead of realizing later that it did so perfectly. I know that if I just stand still and allow the falling off to happen, the release of feelings and people and places, there will be more to reveal itself down the road. Yes, of course there will, because there always is. So today I will ask the universe and all its’ Glory for help in letting go of what I know is wanting to leave, so that my branches can be open to all the lovely colors that will come next.

I will choose to stand tall wherever I am called to today. No matter what. I will wait, arms outstretched, with a sense of readiness and joy. I will know that the next burst of color will reveal itself, just as the glory of autumn leaves always does after summer. In the meantime, I will do my best to stand, unwavering, and trust that all is right and good in my world no matter what the season. And I will remember that bright and full or somber and bare, God is caring for me through all of it.