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AUTUMN PRACTICES

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Autumn is a feast for all senses! It is time for collecting seeds and mushrooms, for picking apples, for walking, for sensing a new season of slow and beautiful decay, and for wrapping yourself in warm and soft clothes. Like all other seasons, autumn manifests the cycle of life. It is all about transformation. Autumn is alchemy right before your eyes.

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ACCEPTANCE

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Decay, aging and death don't go well with the growth paradigm, we seem to be stuck in. We see it in everything from anti-age products, the hunt for eternal youth and the celebration of anything new, to the alienation and taboo of death, dying, and grieving. 

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The world of fungi reminds of the cycle of seasons, the cycle of life. In fact, fungi eat death for breakfast, and in doing so, create new life for supper. How amazing is that?! They are responsible for life itself. Land plants and terrestrial animals wouldn't have existed, if it weren't for them. They paved way for human civilizations, too. They break down dead, organic matter and by doing that they release nutrients and those nutrients are then made available for plants to carry on growing. It's how everything is reborn in this entire web of life, connected through the fungi, explain two researchers in this short article.

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ANCESTORS

 

Samhain, All Saints Day and Night, and Halloween, are all feasts that in different ways celebrate and remember the dead. In many cultures, ancestors are present with us at all times. Present in names, as souls, as guides. I hear stories of meetings with them, in extreme situations, when giving birth, losing a dear one, in near death experiences. I have had vivid meetings with them in dreams, some of which have felt like messages from the other side. Autumn is about transitioning and meeting the dark unknown. Maybe lit a fire, in real life or an imaginative one, in your meditations, and invite ancestors to join you.

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BREATHING THE FRESH AIR

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Autumn scents and fresh air somehow make more head space, the body feels more rooted, the soul uplifted - at least if the melancholy hasn't taken over... The trees soon stand as naked lungs in the forests, having shed what needed to be shed. I always try to become more aware of my breathing and shed those shallow breaths. Autumn invites for some deep ones, all the way down to your root!

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TITLES

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David Abram & Merlin Sheldrake conversation: Magic & Ecology: Entangled Life

These two... Oh! I love all these perspectives and reflections that spread as spores in my system from listening to eco-philosopher David Abram and fungi connoisseur and writer Merlin Sheldrake. From magic and a sensuous, sentient world to nonsense and music. I even put it on the curriculum of a Sustainability and Leadership course, I taught recently, forcing my students to see this video (which they seemed to enjoy).

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Cosmo Sheldrake: Wake Up Calls & Wet Wild World / Albums

Merlin's brother Cosmo is a great musician. These two albums are very touching. Wake Up Calls feature songs from birds on the UK red list, birds that are endangered. These sounds and wonderful small feathered musicians will maybe soon disappear. Wet Wild World is his latest album with song and sounds of whales and fish. The opening song, Bathed in Sound, imagines what's it like to be a whale in the wet wild world of underwater sound. So beautiful.  

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Max Porter: Grief Is the Thing with Feathers / Book 

This book won a lot of rewards. I read it after my mother passed and it comforted me. It deals with the grief of father and his two sons. 

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Zonesister: Hvad gror i dig lige nu? Autumn read / video tarot reading

To the esoteric side: This is in Danish and features astrologer and tarot queen Tanja Schlander, doing one of her "pick a pile" readings. You do that, pick a pile, listen and enjoy!

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