September’s Song

September is a time of transition. This period of late summer marks the movement of fire (summer) to earth (late summer). There is a slowing down during this time, a settling in. I am often reawakened to the concept of health, of cultivating a deep sense of well being, in September as it is the month of my birth and thus the month that connects me most deeply with my sense of growth and change.

Part of this movement toward earth involves a release of the heat we build up during the playful and energetic time of summer. But sometimes we struggle to let go, to open our hands, to release the grip. For our health, all five elements need to move in an uninterrupted flow. Fire to earth, earth to metal (fall), metal to water (winter), water to wood (spring), wood to fire.

We can no more insist that the elements cease their movement than we can demand that aspects of our lives remain the same. This truth was rendered so completely for me recently when coming back from a brief but fantastic weekend getaway. I didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to go back to the hustle of my life, of building my business, writing my book, training for a triathlon. I wanted to rest on the porch overlooking the ocean and when the sun set, move my place of relaxation from the deck chair to the hot tub. (Yes, it was a lovely getaway.)

But the purpose of a weekend getaway is to rest and rejuvenate not resent returning to the beautiful life that I have created. And resent it I did. I found myself in an old and familiar place, occupying the wanting self.

According to Tara Branch, author of Radical Acceptance, “we are unable to give ourselves freely and joyfully to any activity when the wanting self is in charge. And yet, until we attend to the basic desires and fears that energize the wanting self, it will insinuate itself into our every activity and relationship.” 

Hmmm. Such a small thing, resenting the end of a vacation, and yet, it pointed me back to the ongoing work of being human, to attend to that part of me that lived in fear, that remembered only absence, lack, abandonment, that would do anything to stave off the end of vacation because such an end would signal the return to the emptiness I felt so strongly for most of my childhood and early adult life. 

Wow. I had managed to turn the end of a dreamy weekend in a house overlooking the sea into a battle against suffering. A battle by its very nature that never ends and no one ever wins.

As Tara Branch writes, “there are many streams of condition that give rise to the wanting self.” The key is to simply let it rise, to not act from its grip. When the wanting self arises we can sit with her, walk with her, dance or breathe with her, until the grip of the wanting self releases. And it always does; nothing is permanent. Once it passes it is easy to see that all things are moving, cycling, shifting. That we are not who we once were and that our lives are not doomed to repeat themselves over and over. At any moment we can acknowledge the longing and grief, its older twin, and simply let it go.

When all five elements move in an uninterrupted flow, when all our fears and desires can rise and fall, then we, like all things in nature, of nature, have optimal health and, with it, continue to grow.