A – Autumn Leaves

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A to Z Challenge 2022 – Nature and I

I am sure you all have been enamored by the beauty of the vibrant autumn leaves. The crisp ochre, bright crimson and the mellow yellow paint the landscape with captivating allure. Their colorful charisma beguiles the heart. Poets and artists unleash their creative repertoire, with impressive and befitting odes to autumn.

When everything is a picture of perfection, why do the autumn leaves fall from the trees, in absolute surrender? Deep rooted, with their vulnerability branching out, the leaves sway to their heart’s content, before gently cascading to the earthy bosom in an eternal slumber. They accept the law of the universe with non-resistance, for they believe in it with absolute faith.

Of late, a lot of questions are churning within me as to the greater purpose of life. I am in pursuit of finding the answers to at least a few of them, if not all. 

Like the autumnal leaves, I need to unlearn my preconceived ideas and beliefs, to make space for newer and meaningful learnings of life. I need to let go, of all the emotional baggage and scarred feelings that I harbor in the deep crevices of my heart.  I cannot fill my cup of learning, if it is filled up to the brim with hollow notions and superficial happiness.

“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh green leaves can grow in their place.”  Rumi

In every change from within, akin to each falling leaf, there is a pain that I let go, to make room for conducive growth of new tender green leaves of life.