Hello! Here we are in mid October, a month of hips and haws.
Autumn in Northern England feels the most cantankerous of seasons. So much change. We are still tethered to sensations of the sun’s warmth and a lingering awareness of summer with cheery late blooms and heady scents of blousy flowers. Yet shorter days, less light and chilly weather has introduced reds, oranges, russets, yellows, rusts, fading and browning greens. Trees with leaf edges tinted orange, crackling leaves and the promise of next year’s leaf mulch. There’s a desire to cosy in and to harvest.
Last week the tempest of change was wild, with a plus 20 degree centigrade day followed by a rainy soft cold day and an almost freezing night, then a glorious sky blue day followed by a Met Office heavy rain weather warning and a tempest of wind. I walked in the super rainy soft cold day last week. It was still and heavily punctuated by big unceasing plops of rain washing the hips and haws. The rain stopped briefly and sat as priceless jewels in the flat leaves of nasturtiums and lady’s mantle, and hung in droplets from hawthorn berries and bright red rosehips. An unusually wintry night followed where the clouds cleared, and the morning arrived in a starkly open sky and bright bright sun.
High in pectin, the haws from hawthorn are good in jams, jellies and fruit leathers. In herbal medicine, Hawthorn is known as ‘food for the heart’ with restorative regulative properties for the heart, circulation and for managing high blood pressure. The joyous haw gems can also be made into a delicious ketchup. The leaves, berries and haws can be made into herbal tea containing beneficial compounds including vitamins B and C. A note of caution: Hawthorn seeds contain amygdalin a cyanogenic compound, so do avoid consumption of hawthorn seeds.
In meditation practice I’m noticing how quick my thoughts are to wander off to a not quite sharp sense of things not being ok, of little light. Things are out of whack, and yet, if I can look at my thoughts, not from them, if I can focus back in on the moment I’m in and notice, within the loudness of the world, something true and simple emerges, another kind of food for the heart. Sitting with what is, even if it hurts, it is ok. This is ok. If, after sitting, I focus out, there are glorious lit delights all around me. Tiny smatterings of joy, like the rainwashed hips and haws. Small moments of pure bliss which go unnoticed unless I keep practicing, making a choice to focus on them.
We’re about to go into week 4 of the current 8 week mindfulness for stress course that I run, and when I am teaching within the held quality of this course, with the clear structure and week by week building, I am reminded how well crafted it is. It has a through-line from the founders of the original MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) courses through to the experts at Breathworks who taught, and continue to tenderly teach, me. I am reminded consistently of how important it is to kindly and gently keep bringing our attention back to the everyday practices we can put in place to support our own mental and physical wellbeing. If not meditation sitting, other practices and forms of noticing, of being aware, of being kind, and always, always, taking the time and allowing time to let the joy in, however small and however hard it feels.
I often talk in 1-2-1 practice and in facilitations, about rummaging in a metaphorical tool bag of personal skills and learned practices. Recollecting or noticing what’s sunk into a big soft corner and is hidden, yet can be superbly powerful if one remembers to reach or rummage for it. Sometimes it isn’t about what’s in one’s own personal tool bag at all, but is about what might come unbidden, a fleeting joy, an unexpected hurt, a resonating comment, a learnt glimmer, or otherwise. What pops up or lands in any given moment. Being open to that but also open to putting the work in to find the practices, learnings, skills, that work for us individually, and that we can remember to access when we need them. And, that we have practiced, over and over, so that they are there for us when we need them.
What works for us one day, or one hour, might not work for us the next. Being open and curious about all of this. Noticing how our understandings and practices evolve and build into a glorious repertoire, but even in that sometimes burgeoning menu of skills, and practiced practices, we still, and probably always, may need reminding that we have existing skills and tools. We might need others to support us to refresh our tools, learn new skills, to consistently be curious.
In mindfulness teaching we are bound (as we should be) by codes of practice that support quality teaching. One of those is to have regular supervision. This is important to me. Being gently encouraged to notice how many ways I do (or can) support myself from the existing tools and skills in my bag, and yet how many times I forget to rummage. These are times when I am deep in an unkindness or judgement on myself, or even others. Or deep in believing my own thoughts and forgetting to land into the body. Sometimes it is hard to remember I have any kind of bag of skills at all! I am part of a community of practice, and host an Open Practice once a month on the first Monday of the month at 6.30pm. This also supports me to keep connected, and, in supervision, preparing to teach and to run Practice, I am embedding reminders of that repertoire of skills.
How can we keep getting curious about what supports us to be, how do we remind ourselves consistently to access and practice the important work that allows more light in, that is food for the heart?
There are some much quoted Leonard Cohen lines in ‘Anthem’ from his 1992 album ‘The Future’ which go:
‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in’
Leonard Cohen, extract from ‘Anthem’
Harvest time or autumn or ‘fall’ perhaps evokes a sense of loss of light, a loss of long summer days. And yes, there is a falling away, and yet, there is so much gain: the colours, the low sunlight streaming through, a change of need from salad to deep coloured root veg stews and soups, putting a jumper and big socks on, lighting a candle, big soft velvety nights. Our cat who has, since last March (when we began the shift into spring and longer days), ignored an old deep cosy round cat bed tucked into a bookshelf, has undergone some autumnal activation shift, and has ‘seen’ her old place anew, curling up in it each day, head buried into its old soft fleece. The light gets in every time I notice her in her beautiful circle of sleep.
What can we see anew? And what can we allow to fall away? Whilst many things going on around me may be challenging, and I would love things to be ‘perfect’, to be different, how can I be with what is? How can we be with those things that are difficult, especially those we cannot change? What I can do is to keep practicing, showing up to the practice, ring what I can ring, keep letting the light in.
I’m hoping this might chime or resonate with you too. Wishing you love this month and do keep on letting the light in.
Open Practice this month is Monday 6 November 6.30pm contact me for a link if you’d like to come, more information on the mindfulness course tab of this website.
Thank you for reading.
You can subscribe to receive this newsletter via substack