Chapter Seven
End of October to mid-December in the Northern Hemisphere
End of April to mid-June in the Southern Hemisphere
Over the next few weeks the dark will be expanding. The waning cycle of the sun will reach its fullness at the winter solstice, at which point it will end and we will welcome back the return of the light. Our yoga practice offers us many ways of lifting our spirits and lightening up the dark days of autumn and winter.
Every Ending Is a New Beginning
Autumn is turning to winter now and the leaves are falling from the trees; the days are getting shorter and cold frosty mornings whisper that winter is on the way.
In many traditions the point when we enter the darkest phase of the year is seen as a new beginning rather than an ending. We pass through the darkness only to be reborn into the light at the winter solstice. You and I, before being born into the light of the world, began our lives in the darkness of our mother’s womb. An oak tree started out as an acorn buried in the darkness of the soil. Each new day begins and ends in darkness at sunrise and sunset. Every month, before the new moon is reborn into the night sky, there is a period of darkness when the moon is not yet visible. Similarly, as autumn turns to winter, we are entering the darkest phase of the year, until the sun is reborn at the winter solstice in December. Every ending is a new beginning.
In the same way that the darkness of the night gives us rest and dream time, so too the dark half of the year gives us an opportunity to pause, rest, and rejuvenate. Just as the oak tree stays alive over winter by stripping itself of leaves and using almost no energy, we too can look for opportunities during this autumn-to-winter period to enter a place of stillness and simply be utterly present in the moment.
Although this period is not a good time for action, it is the perfect time to plan and incubate ideas; then, like a bulb resting in the soil over winter, you will be ready next spring to send up new green shoots. Spend some time now picturing what you want to get out into the world next growing season and you will be ready to surf the crest of the wave of the growing tide when spring comes round again.
At this time we have Halloween, with its candlelit pumpkin lanterns and children dressed up in spooky outfits trick-or-treating door to door. Traditionally, it’s a time for honoring the dead. This can be done through a simple ritual, such as lighting a candle for a meaningful person in your life who has passed on. This might be an ancestor, such as a dearly loved grandparent, or it could be someone who has inspired you and whom you feel a spiritual connection to, such as a writer, poet, painter, singer, political agitator, or yogini. In yoga the root chakra (muladhara) is associated with ancestral connections and a sense of tribal belonging.
How we are remembered by our descendants will depend on how we act today. Our kindnesses and cruelties echo down the generations. We don’t want to hand on a poison chalice of meanness and petty grudges; rather, let us hand down a torch of love. What do you consider your heirloom gifts to be? And what do you wish to pass on to the next generation?
Although it’s natural to be afraid of the dark, our spiritual practice trains us to turn and face our fear in order that its hold over us might be diminished. Our yoga and mindfulness practice can help us embrace and engage with our fears, moving through them and out into the light again.
Welcoming the Composting Phase of the Year
If the period between late autumn and the winter solstice were a phase of the moon, it would be the Balsamic Moon, which is the waning crescent moon. The predominant quality (guna) of the autumn-to-winter season is that of heaviness, darkness, dormancy, and decay (tamas). And whereas it is easy to love the beauty of the red, yellow, orange, and crimson autumn leaves, it is harder to enthuse over piles of sodden old brown leaves that are dying back. Although the composting phase of the year is not pretty, it is an essential part of the circle of life.
The Buddha reminds us that a lotus cannot flower if its roots are resting upon marble. In order to flower the lotus needs to be rooted in mud. There is a partnership between the beauty of the lotus flower and the mud; they go together hand in hand. Likewise, the old brown leaves rotting down in winter provide the compost that gives us new green leaves and blossom in spring.
Traditionally, the autumn-to-winter phase of the year is associated with old age. As we confront the death of the year, we also come face to face with our own mortality, and although this can be uncomfortable, it also presents us with the opportunity for spiritual growth.
The Buddha encouraged his monks and nuns to go to the charnel ground to receive a lesson in impermanence by contemplating the body of someone who had recently died. It’s unlikely that we would go to such extremes in our own meditation practice. However, our seasonal practice offers us a gentler way of working with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth by observing the annual cycle of composting, decay, and rebirth. We too are part of nature and we can observe our own reactions to the natural process of aging, in ourselves and others, and the patterns of clinging or avoidance that this brings up in us.
When I started yoga in as a teenager in the 1970s, yoga books made wild claims that yoga would give you eternal youth and even immortality! In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali states that supernatural powers (siddhi), which include bodily perfection, eternal youth, and immortality, can be acquired through the practice of yogic discipline. He also gives a warning that we should not become too mesmerized by these powers, or they will become a distraction from the ultimate aim of yoga, which is enlightenment (Yoga Sutra 3.37).
Whereas it’s true that yoga can help us maintain our youthful vigor, it becomes an unhealthy pursuit when it morphs into clinging to something that all of us must ultimately surrender. From this point of view, it’s understandable why in the Yoga Sutras Patanjali identifies the will to live (abhinivesa) as one of the obstacles preventing the yogi from reaching enlightenment (Yoga Sutra 2.9). Although the survival instinct is entirely natural and desirable, it becomes pernicious when it develops into a denial of reality and an obsession with preserving youth at any cost. By reconnecting us to the simplicity and beauty of the eternal cycle of life, death, and renewal, our seasonal awareness helps us grow into spiritual maturity.
There is a multibillion-dollar industry built around preserving youthful vitality and freezing it in time. The media loves that which is young and beautiful, whereas that which is old, unattractive, and “past its prime” is edited out and absent from our screens, newspapers, and magazines. Women especially are told that it is wrong for them to blossom into the splendor of their full maturity; they must stay preserved in aspic in the spring and summer of their days. Fortunately, Nature is not so squeamish about aging, as it is an essential part of her design for a thriving, healthy ecosystem.
Scientists studying forests are only just now beginning to understand the important contribution dead wood makes to the health of the forest. Standing dead trees and fallen debris provide a fantastic array of “microhabitats” for woodland wildlife. A dead tree is said to support more diversity of life than a living one, including homes for birds, bats, invertebrates, plants, and fungi.21 Eventually the tree decomposes into humus that nourishes growing young trees and replenishes the forest.
We humans are learning to tolerate the “untidiness” of fallen and decaying wood and resist the urge to clear it away, which in the long term is detrimental to the health of the forest. Now that we understand the importance of dead wood in our forests, can we make a leap of understanding and recognize the importance of “dead wood” in our own personal life? We tend to like our lives to be ordered and tidy. Often, we turn to activities such as yoga to “purify” our lives of all the chaos. We especially do not like the messiness and wildness of raw emotion. And yet perhaps we do need these wild “dead wood” aspects of our lives to maintain the health and well-being of our own personal ecosystem.
The wheel of the year is a mandala and within this circle are to be found sunshine and shadow, light and dark, calm and storm, new life and decay. Our lives too are mandalas and within the circle of our life are to be found sunshine and shadow; highs and lows; happiness and sadness; gains and losses; birth and death. As we develop and hone our seasonal awareness, we learn to be open and present to the wisdom that is contained within every aspect of each season. The buds unfurling on the tree in spring and the old brown leaves in autumn are all part of the same circle. Likewise, a mature spiritual practice enables us to welcome the totality of every aspect of our life as part of the circle.
We Light a Candle in the Darkness
Our challenge during the autumn-winter period is on the one hand to embrace the darkness and on the other to bring light into the darkness. We recognize how darkness offers us rest, regeneration, and renewal during the autumn-winter months. At the same time, it’s important to lighten up dark days by conjuring up healing images of light.
In Classical Yoga the divine spark within is called the Atman, and it is said to be like a flame or a continuously burning pilot light that has been ignited in the heart-space. As Nature (prakriti) enters her decaying, composting phase, we can counterbalance the dark, heavy (tamas) quality of the season by visualizing sattvic images of light and luminescence. We light a candle in the darkness, drawing our awareness inward to contemplate that which is eternal and unchanging.
We can also draw inspiration from Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which takes place in late October to early November. Diwali means “a row of lights” and marks new beginnings. The Hindu goddess Lakshmi only visits houses that are clean and well lit, so at Diwali Hindu houses are lit with dozens of flickering, hand-painted terracotta lamps.
The Autumn to Winter Yoga Practice that follows shows you how you can bring warmth and creativity into your yoga this autumn-to-winter by inviting the sun to power your practice. Introducing images of the sun into a yoga session can be uplifting and empowering and can expand your sense of what’s possible. At the start of your yoga practice, spend some time either lying or sitting and visualize where you can locate or sense the sun in your body. The solar plexus, at the center of the body, is a particularly good area to choose for this visualization. Then, as you do your yoga practice, keep bringing your awareness back to this part of the body and visualize a sun radiating warmth and light there.
The Spring-Flowering Bulb Meditation later in this chapter uses the image of a bulb resting in the darkness of the soil. Like the bulb, we too can use this period to put down strong roots, find rest and renewal, and incubate ideas, sending up green shoots and blooming next spring.
You might also want to mindfully plant a few spring bulbs, either outside in the soil or inside in a pot. As you place the bulbs in the soil, imagine that you are planting seeds of hope and intention for yourself and your loved ones. Then, as autumn turns to winter, you can enjoy the magic of green shoots appearing through the soil, buds appearing, and flowers blooming.
The autumn-to-winter period is the perfect time to draw inward and reconnect with your inner light. In this way we uncover an illuminating presence that will sustain us through the highs and lows of a life constantly in flux. This is a lamplight that burns steady, in a place where no wind blows.
Autumn to Winter Yoga Practice
The main theme of this practice is one of bringing light into the darkness and brightening up the dark days of autumn and winter. Sun imagery is used to lift the mood and shake off seasonal blues.
The practice honors the autumn-to-winter urge to hibernate by including poses that draw the awareness inward, such as Standing Twist, forward bends, and Child’s Pose.
To avoid the autumn-to-winter slump we include backbends to open the chest. As a nod to Halloween we choose the scary Lion Pose, which is reminiscent of a church gargoyle that scares away evil spirits.
This practice is designed to be used during late autumn to early winter, but it’s fine to use it any time of year. The practice has a calming, soothing effect. It is gently energizing and boosts the mood, encouraging a sunny outlook.
Allow 20 to 30 minutes.
1. Standing Like a Tree
Stand tall, feet parallel and about hip width apart. Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth beneath you. Imagine a string attached to the crown of your head, gently pulling you skyward, and simultaneously feel your heels rooting down into the earth. Imagine that you have roots from the soles of your feet going deep down into the earth. Each time you inhale imagine that you are drawing up vital energy (prana) from the earth. Picture this energy traveling, like an electric current, up your legs to your power center at the belly (hara). Each time you exhale imagine that you are storing this energy at your hara. Repeat for 3 to 6 breaths.
Now picture the sun in the sky and then picture a warm, glowing sun at your solar plexus, radiating warmth and light.
Standing Like a Tree
2. Lion Pose (Simhasana) standing
Move your legs wider than shoulder width, toes turned slightly out. Bend your arms and make tight fists with your hands. Screw up your face, eyes shut tight. As you exhale, bend the knees, lean forward slightly, and open your mouth wide as you stretch out your tongue, making a ha sound as you expel the breath. At the same time, open your eyes wide and spread your fingers wide. As you inhale, straighten the legs and come back to the starting position with clenched fists. Repeat 4 times.
Lion Pose standing
3. Standing Twist (Parivrtti Trikonasana) Combination sequence
Move the legs wide apart, feet parallel, with the arms out to the side and parallel to the floor. Exhale and come into a Standing Twist (Parivrtti Trikonasana) by bending forward from the hip joints, taking one hand to the floor (or to the leg for gentler pose) and raising the other arm up toward the ceiling; look up at the raised hand. Stay here for one breath, lengthening through the spine as you twist. Inhale and come back up to standing, arms out to sides. Repeat on the other side. Inhale and come back up to standing, arms out to sides. Exhale and bend forward from the hip joint, into Wide-Leg Standing Forward Bend Pose (Prasarita Padottanasana), bringing the hands to the floor (for a gentler version, bring the hands to rest on the legs). Inhale and come back up to standing, arms out to sides. Repeat the entire Standing Twist Combination sequence 3 more times.
Standing Twist Combination
4. Cat Pose to Child’s Pose (Balasana) with humming
Come onto all fours. On the exhale, hum the breath out, rounding the back up and sitting back into Child’s Pose. Inhale and come back to all fours. Repeat 8 times.
Cat Pose to Child’s Pose with humming
5. Half-Locust Pose (Ardha Salabhasana)
Lie on your front, arms by your sides. Inhale to prepare. As you exhale, lift the head and chest from the floor, sweeping the arms out to the sides like a bird’s wings and lifting one straight leg a little way from the floor (keep both frontal hip bones on the floor and do not twist the pelvis). Inhale and lift the chest a little higher. Exhale and lower yourself back to the floor. Repeat on the other side. Repeat 4 times each side.
Half-Locust Pose
6. Sphinx Pose (Salamba Bhujangasana)
Lying on your front, come up into a gentle backbend, propping yourself up on your forearms. Remember not to crease the back of the neck. Feel the tailbone and the crown of the head lengthening away from each other. Be aware of the natural rhythm of the breath. Imagine that there is candle flame at the breastbone radiating out light and warmth. Stay here for a few breaths.
Sphinx Pose
7. Child’s Pose (Balasana)
Rest here for a few breaths.
Child’s Pose
8. Seated Sun Visualization
Find a comfortable sitting position. Picture a warm, glowing sun at your solar plexus radiating warmth and light. On each exhale, silently chant Ram (pronounced rum). Repeat 6 times. (Ram is the seed mantra associated with the solar plexus chakra, manipura. This is a fiery chakra associated with personal power and self-confidence.)
Seated Sun Visualization
9. Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana) with chanting
Sit tall, legs outstretched (bend the knees to ease the pose) and arms raised. Picture a warm, glowing sun at your solar plexus, radiating warmth and light. Inhale, and as you exhale, fold forward over the legs, chanting Ram. Inhale and return to starting position. Repeat 6 times. Then stay in the forward bend for a few breaths, silently chanting.
Seated Forward Bend with chanting
10. Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana) with arm movements
Lie on your back, both knees bent, both feet on the floor hip width apart, hands resting on solar plexus. Picture a warm, glowing sun at your solar plexus, radiating warmth and light. Inhale and peel the back from the floor up into Bridge Pose (Setu Bandhasana), simultaneously taking the arms out to the sides and onto the floor, just below shoulder level, palms facing up. Stay one breath. Exhale and return to the starting position. Repeat 6 times.
Bridge Pose with arm movements
11. Knees-to-Chest Pose (Apanasana)
Rest for a few breaths with the knees on the chest.
Knees-to-Chest Pose
12. Spring-Flowering Bulb Visualization
See page 125. If you prefer, choose another relaxation or meditation.
Spring-Flowering Bulb Visualization
Autumn to Winter Yoga Practice Overview
1. Standing Like a Tree. Inhale: draw up energy from the earth. Exhale: store that energy at your belly (hara). Repeat for 3–6 breaths. Picture the sun in the sky and then a warm, glowing sun at your solar plexus.
2. Lion Pose. Make a ha sound as you stretch your tongue out. Repeat × 4.
3. Standing Twist Combination sequence. Repeat × 4.
4. Cat Pose to Child’s Pose. Exhale: hum breath out, rounding the back up and sitting back into Child’s Pose. Inhale: come back to all fours. Repeat × 8.
5. Half-Locust Pose. Repeat × 4 on each side.
6. Sphinx Pose. Imagine candle flame at breastbone radiating light and warmth. Stay for a few breaths.
7. Child’s Pose. Rest for a few breaths.
8. Seated Sun Visualization. Picture a warm, glowing sun at solar plexus radiating warmth and light. Exhale: silently chant Ram. Repeat × 6.
9. Seated Forward Bend with chanting. Picture a warm, glowing sun at solar plexus. Exhale: fold forward, chanting Ram. Inhale: return to starting position. Repeat × 6. Then stay in forward bend for a few breaths, silently chanting.
10. Bridge Pose with arm movements. Picture a warm, glowing sun at solar plexus. Inhale: come up into Bridge Pose. Stay one breath. Exhale: return to starting position. Repeat × 6.
11. Knees-to-Chest Pose. Rest for a few breaths.
12. Spring-Flowering Bulb Visualization.
Exercise
Spring-Flowering Bulb Visualization
This visualization reminds us that although nature lies dormant over winter, under the surface there is still a lot happening. The visualization will lighten up the autumn-winter days and give us hope for the renewal that comes with the arrival of spring. It is also a metaphor for the work over autumn and winter that we ourselves do to incubate hopes and dreams for the future.
Allow about 10 minutes.
Find yourself a comfortable position, either sitting or lying. Relax your shoulders down away from your ears and soften your face with a half smile. Become aware of the natural flow of your breath.
Imagine that you are in a beautiful garden in autumn. It’s a place where you feel safe and peaceful. Look around—what do you see? Notice the colors, shapes, textures, and fragrances of the autumnal garden.
Imagine that you have come to the garden to plant spring-flowering bulbs. Picture yourself picking up a bulb and holding it in your hand. Notice its shape, color, and texture. Picture yourself picking up your trowel and digging a hole in the soil. Notice the color and feel of the soil. Now picture placing the bulb in the soil and covering it with soil. And then you water the soil around where it is planted.
There is a chill in the air and the wind is blowing leaves around the garden. Even though you can sense winter is on its way, your heart is warmed when you think of your bulb snug in the soil. Soon it will put down roots and then will lie dormant in the darkness of the soil over the cold months ahead. In time, when the weather starts to warm up again, the bulb will draw on its store of energy and send up leaves and a stem, and eventually it will flower. Picture in your mind’s eye the beauty of your flower in bloom in spring, shimmering in a gentle breeze.
When you are ready, let go of the image of the flower and garden. Become aware of your body again and notice where it is in contact with the floor or your support and the sensations associated with this.
Now take a few minutes to consider what you will be incubating in your life over the coming months, ready to send up green shoots next spring.
Bring your awareness back to your surroundings. Resolve to take any positive insights that you have gained from this visualization back into your everyday life. Then when you are ready, carry on with your day.
Exercise
The Surrounding a Difficulty
with Love Meditation
In this chapter we have considered how the autumn-to-winter period gives us the opportunity, as we enter the darkest phase of the year, to turn and face our fears. The Surrounding a Difficulty with Love Meditation will help you develop the skills to tolerate and embrace difficult emotions more easily. This in turn will help you build up courage and emotional resilience.
In this meditation we learn to approach our difficulties with curiosity rather than avoid them, and this can help reduce the intensity and duration of difficult emotions. This meditation can also help you to learn how to show love and acceptance to yourself when you are suffering.
If you are new to meditation, before you try this one, it would be best to gain experience with some of the less challenging exercises in this book, such as Calming Cloud Meditation (Chapter Two), the Loving Kindness Walking Meditation (Chapter Three), Placing Thoughts on a Leaf Visualisation (Chapter Six), or the Four-Minute Check-In Meditation (Chapter Eight). If you are suffering from clinical depression or severe anxiety, wait until you are feeling well again before trying it.
Allow 10 to 20 minutes.
Find yourself a comfortable sitting position, either on the floor or in a straight-backed chair. Have a tall, erect, and relaxed posture. Or if you prefer, this meditation can be done lying down.
Notice where your body is in contact with the floor or your support. Allow those parts of your body that are in contact with the floor or your support to go with gravity and relax down into the earth.
Take your awareness around your body, noticing which parts of your body already feel relaxed and which parts feel tight or tense. Let go of any unnecessary tension, relax your shoulders down away from your ears, and soften your face with a half smile. Become aware of the natural flow of your breath.
Now bring to mind a difficulty that has been troubling you. Don’t choose the most difficult problem in your life; rather, start off by focusing on a minor worry or concern. Spend a few minutes turning this troubling situation over in your mind. Notice in a non-judgmental way any thoughts and feelings that are arising in response to this difficulty.
As you dwell on this troubling situation, notice how your body is responding. Notice where you are feeling the difficulty most strongly in your body. Rather than pushing the unpleasant sensations away, see if you can welcome and surround them with love. Imagine that you are giving a big hug to the parts of your body that have tightened or tensed up in response to this troubling emotion.
Notice how the intense physical sensations change from moment to moment. Keep surrounding them with love. As you breathe in, imagine that you are breathing into this part of your body. As you exhale, soften and release, letting go of any tightness or tension.
Now let go of focusing on this difficult situation and the emotions it brings up for you. Bring your awareness back to where your body is in contact with the floor or your support. Feel yourself supported by the earth.
Become aware of sounds inside the room and sounds outside. Come back to an awareness of your surroundings. Notice how you are feeling now and in what way this is different from how you felt at the start of the meditation. Give yourself a big hug and then carry on with your day.
Tree Wisdom in Autumn to Winter
As autumn turns to winter, the prettiness of autumn leaves changes to the brown, soggy mess of decomposing leaves. Mindfulness encourages us to turn toward and embrace all aspects of our experience non-judgmentally. When you are out and about during this season, take time to notice how trees manifest both the beauty of the season and the process of decomposition that is occurring. Mindfully observe what feelings arise in you in response to both the beautiful and the decaying. Is it possible to find richness in both aspects of the season? Approach this mindfulness exercise with an open mind and curiosity. Use all your senses to appreciate the season in its fullness.
Exercise
Trees and Creativity
during Autumn to Winter
You can use the time that you have spent mindfully around trees as a springboard for your creativity. If you are stuck for ideas, here are a few to start you off:
• Take a series of photos contrasting the beauty of the season and its composting aspect. For example, you might take a photo of some beautiful red yew berries and another photo of windfall apples bruised and decomposing on the ground.
• Write about five things you like about this time of year and five things you dislike.
• How much do you know about the vital importance of old, decaying trees in the ecosystem? Use the resources available to you online, in books, from a knowledgeable friend, and so on to find out more. Once you have done this, observe whether your newfound knowledge adds to or detracts from your enjoyment and appreciation of trees. Share your knowledge with friends.
• Too much tidiness in a garden is bad for wildlife. Designate part of your garden (if you have one) as a less tidy, wildlife-friendly area.
Meditation upon a Yew Tree
Whenever possible I prefer to walk and leave the car at home. One of my well-trodden routes takes me through a churchyard where an ancient yew tree grows. The tree’s branches curve down to the ground and then grow back up again in a U-bend, which creates a house-like space around the bough of the tree. Yew trees are often found in churchyards, and it is believed that the trees marked sacred sites where people gathered to worship before the churches were even built.22 In the name of research for this book, I persuaded my husband to take a midnight walk with me to visit my favorite yew tree under the light of the full moon. It was that starry, moonlit walk through the churchyard that inspired the tree prose poem below.
I am the tree of the full moon. Stars dance above and below me. I am the church of the night sky. My tree children form a constellation around me, our heads bowed together in holy communion, making sacred vows of love. As above so below; my roots, an earthly
mirror of my heavenly branches, find succor in Mother Earth.
I am the evergreen Tree of Eternity: Taxus baccata, the yew tree. I am the Tree of the Dark Moon, before the crescent moon has appeared in the night sky. I am the dark night before hope arises with the new dawn.
My leaves are eaten by the satin beauty moth. My seeds, leaves, and bark are all extremely poisonous. Turn toward that which you most fear. In skillful hands poison becomes the medicine that cures whatever ails you. Walk toward the darkness and come through to the light.
My branches are kindly old hands cupping all your cares and
woes. They are a loving arm wrapped around your life. Together
we can transform fear into love. Here, take this courage and
step inside the mandala of your life and be renewed.
Over the years, tears have been shed and flowers placed on newly carved headstones. I am the Tree of the Mourning Moon. The lesson of the Mourning Moon is that we mourn, but then mourning comes to an end: a new start, a fresh start. Your roots are my roots; my renewal is your renewal. I am the tree of Life-in-Death: endings and new beginnings. When you go, what is left behind? All that is left is love: so be kind.
I am the Tree of Resurrection. Blackbirds eat my fleshy red arils
and disperse the black seeds there within. In spring snowdrops
carpet the floor of my womb-like treehouse. In summer white-
flowered brambles weave around my branches, which bow
down and take root in the earth, and I am renewed.
Autumn to Winter Meditation Questions
These questions are designed to be used any time from around the end of October to mid-November in the Northern Hemisphere and from around the end of April to mid-May in the Southern Hemisphere. Guidance on how to use the seasonal meditation questions can be found in Chapter One.
• As winter approaches, who brings warmth and light into my life?
• How will I express my gratitude to them?
• As the leaves fall from the trees, what do I need to let go of in order to have the time and energy to nurture these key relationships?
• How can I bring warmth, light, and joy into the lives of my loved ones over the coming winter?
• Looking back over the past year, what have I achieved (in work, home, study, etc.)?
• Although the autumn-to-winter period is not a good time for action, it’s a great time for planning. What plans do I have for next year? (Work, home, holidays, relationships, adventures, etc.)
• What do I wish to incubate over the winter, ready to send up fresh, new green shoots in the spring?
• Which projects do I wish to nurture and nourish, ready to launch into the world next spring, and so take full advantage of the growing season energy?
• If I were to imagine a world where anything is possible, what would I envisage my future to be?
• To conserve energy during the winter months trees are letting go of their leaves.
• What do I wish to let go of?
• What needs processing and composting?
• The autumn-to-winter period is a time of drawing inward, resting, and recuperating.
• How will I go about nurturing and nourishing myself over the winter?
• Which yoga practices will energize me and help banish the winter blues?
• Which activities nourish me and which activities deplete me? How can I increase the nourishing activities and reduce the depleting ones?
• How do I feel about moving into the darkest phase of the year?
• Am I able to lovingly hold my natural fear of darkness while at the same time recognizing the potential of darkness to offer rest and healing?
• Am I using up valuable energy resisting and avoiding things that I fear? Are there any small steps that I could take to enable me to turn and face my fears?
• How can I bring light into the darkness?
• In many traditions this is a time for honoring ancestors. (For our purpose “ancestors” could be blood relatives, or it could be people from the past whom you admire and to whose lineage you feel a spiritual connection.)
• How can I honor those who have gone before me and thank them for the gifts that they have bequeathed to me?
• How would I like to be remembered, and what gifts do I want to hand down to future generations?
• Are there any older members of my family (or lineage) whom I could talk to and find out more about our family history?
• In order to cope better with the winter months ahead, what can I learn from nature about adaptability and versatility?
• How can I help and protect wildlife over the winter?
• How will I go about getting out and enjoying the beauty of the season?