The swifts and swallows swoop and dive above my head, so close I hear their wings and distinguish their colours. They’re preparing to leave these shores to make perilous flights thousands of miles away and my heart is heavy. The sadness I feel that they have to go, that things change when I don’t want them to and that their journey is now more precarious, dangerous and ill-fated than ever before. I cry as I offer them a prayer of blessing knowing that in a couple of days the sky will be empty of their dance.
I continue my walk arriving at a familiar gap in the trees that allows me a view across the field into the distance. Such beauty invites a pause and as I stop I place my hand on the grooved trunk of a nearby oak. From within me I suddenly hear the phrase “I don’t like change”. It takes me by surprise and I linger to let the words rest, to let the oak hear them. The wisdom of her many years and how change is exactly what has created her beauty over decades of seasons settles me. I don’t like change but change I must allow brings a peaceful rest and I continue my walk. Still sad, I let the tears return, refreshing, releasing, healing.
This turning of the season from a drought-filled, hot summer of endless days of sunshine into what has felt like abrupt chilliness, grey and wet has felt jarring. I, like everyone else, longed for the desperately needed rain, grieved with farmers for failed crops and lamented the relentless and speedy arrival of climate change in action. And then the rain came and suddenly Autumn walked through the door where summer had been and the swifts and swallows began gathering on the telephone wires preparing to leave.
This not liking change thing is not exactly new for me. I’m a slow decision maker and don’t do well when plans change at the last minute. I struggle moving from the quiet dark of winter, never quite feeling ready for the life and energy of springtime. And then I never feel ready to let go of the warmth of summer to welcome the dark. I’m slow to catch up and my heart aches at each turning. I lament too, the way of modern life these days that is so rushed, noisy and demanding. I was made for a slower, simpler life and although I do my best to accommodate this it’s hard to be as slow and steady as I would really like. I grieve the way the earth is rapidly changing, so much being irradicated due to the way we live. How I wish we could take a global deep breath, a pause and a rethink before it’s too late and we hurtle into another mass extinction.
Yet, here we are. Here I am in another change of season, another turning, another transition. Here I am in this moment of history, breathing the breath that sustains me, living the life that has been gifted to me, fleeting as it is. I know I can either cling onto what I want and with futility fight off what I don’t want or I can open my heart and hands and let go. Let myself fall into the wisdom of the oak, the knowing of the swallows and the love of The Divine Mothers. This is not a resignation, it is not giving up, it is not the abandonment of my own heart or the calling upon it. It is a recognition of my powerlessness to prevent the change that I don’t want but to welcome it, allow it, cease the struggle for it to be different.
When I do this, I soften, I make space within myself for what is waiting to be given as I step over the threshold of this change. Here I am tentatively taking that step, letting myself go where I don’t want to, saying farewell to the swallows for another year, welcoming the falling of leaves, the arrival of barren branches and the dark cold that accompanies them. Here I am saying yes to ALL of life, wanting to allow, welcome, surrender and walk into all that is here and all that will come whether I want it or not. Knowing that I will never be alone in that walk, whatever comes, knowing that LOVE will walk with me and that life will keep turning, changing, moving even when I am long gone.