Homecoming

Friends,
I associate this time of the year with a kind of homecoming, a soulful nostalgia. Beyond the high school, college and related homecoming rites this first of September we are also coming home to routines, a settling in that offers an awareness that not only has the season turned, but our lives with it. Children return to school; organizational responsibilities resume; and we perhaps sense that our personal, and the lives of our family have matured, ripened a bit over the summer. But now we are ready to be gathered in. An awareness of melancholy creeps upon us with shortening days, an evening chill, and the hoot of a distant owl. But I think our souls especially appreciate this fall homecoming of respite from summer’s busyness and distraction.

Perhaps most notably September elicits our sense of nostalgia. The memory of tearful hugs with our brave children sent again to venture out to a new grade with a heightened awareness that they were facing a new level of accountability and challenge. My own memories of leaving home - you will have your own version - are of a mixture of excitement and wariness as I launched away to college to be away from the first time. And then followed by coming back home in a couple of months to declare my success at my newfound independence while also being so glad to be back in the security of my own room, cuddling our pet, home cooking and checking in with friends.

The fall season is also haunted with loss. My cousin died recently, and I have been remembering other dear family members and friends who have passed during this past year. Like the Latin American celebration of El Dia de Los Metros (Day of the Dead) celebrated later in the fall, this season initiates a celebration of both death and life. In addition to the combination of personal losses and gratitudes for the lives of those who have died, our hearts attune to the withdrawal of nature as the leaves fall, the garden shrivels, and many of our song birds begin to fly south. And now nature rests in anticipation of a rebirth next spring of another form of seasonal homecoming.

Perhaps what I most want to try to convey is the importance of acknowledging and savoring our deeply embedded, ancient emotions of nostalgias that accompany our soul’s homecomings in this fall season. Before we ensconce in the routines and responsibilities of fall's transitional phase in our lives, let us satisfy our soul’s need to breath in and hold the gifts of the fall season in our hearts. Consider a good long “sit” with your senses, heart and soul open to a homecoming for your soul and the wonders around you

Blessings,

Tom