This painting is by my aunt, Lucy Durand Sikes, from an autumn past. The glass did not allow a clear view…..a theme of mine these days!

We are experiencing a drought here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. A familiar phenomenon for me, from decades of California living yet unusual in this place of moss and damp, mushrooms and mildew. It is affecting the autumn show of color in our trees. The change of season is upon us, as frosty nights give way to warm bright days. The leaves are changing their summer garments of green for the multicolored rich tones of autumn. But rather than standing out flat and vibrant, they are turning muted shades before crumpling and falling.

Nature always has some information for me when I tune in. My body feels much like the leaves this autumn. My colors are muted. I sense the deep transformation process that my body is undergoing. I feel the pulling away from the world as I imagine the leaves do, dropping from their world of a tree. This year they are not landing flat, exclaiming their beauty with brilliant reds, oranges and golds. Nor am I. Instead, I am following their lead, finding myself hunched in upon myself, cradling my heart with my limbs. There is a reach for more solitude, a pulling away from the noise of the world outside. I crave stillness as I pull inward. I sense faint stirrings of other worlds swirling about me. I can feel the tendrils of connection arise in a mist only to fall away.

The leaves fall knowing themselves to become part of the duff of the forest floor. An important phase in the circle of life, decaying and breaking down into matter that then aids in new growth. I am breaking down, as personality self fades, higher self flickers in and out, not quite a steady flame. Emotions flare and extinguish in gusts. Memories show up suddenly under spot lights, asking to be seen fully. Once felt, they depart the stage. Body heats up, I fling off a layer, then cools down and I am donning another one or two. Rashes appear and itch. Sharp pains can stab with an OW intensity and then fade. There is no steadiness in this decay. It is happening on every level and in every way.

I sense how a caterpillar must feel as it turns to mush before its radiant emergence with wings.I know deep in my cells, that the emergence into a new form, is approaching. I trust this with all that I am. It helps as I navigate the dismantling. There is no ground to stand upon. No casing for this changing form. It is as if I am skinless, floating in space. Untethered, ungrounded, simply un.

Muted……here yet not seen nor heard. Yet.

My voice is resting. Gathering the ability to sing the notes of rejoicing. My body, reclining so as to be able to jump up to dance the dance of joy. Emotions, bobbing so as to discover their balance point of calm unattachment. I can almost touch this new land of love. It ignites my heart’s flame as I breathe in and filter the dross and spin it out into the liquidlovelight that I AM.

This world is being transformed from the inside out. We are in the process. We are moving towards a world of love, beyond anything that we can imagine with our limited senses. As I catch a tone, a movement, a current in my cells….it draws me forward. There is nothing to fear. There is only the allowing, the trusting, the knowing of the power of love. All shall be made new. By me, and by you. Together, with God/Spirit/ the Universe/ the Mother as our guide, we shall bring heaven to earth. It is time. I turn to Julian of Norwich’s most famous quote: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well“.