Descent

We have tipped over into autumn, I’m feeling it here in the northwest. The light has shifted, the mornings are crisp, and the air smells of falling leaves. The rain is here; it’s all a calm tug of descent after the summer we’ve just come through.

Autumn pulls us down from the electric days of August—the energy starts to dissipate and cool. The myth we’re all familiar with begins to unfold now: Persephone descends into the underworld (either because Hades abducts her or by her own free will—the stories differ). Demeter grieves for her lost daughter—her sorrow ushers in autumn and then winter. Hecate helps Demeter bring Persephone back. Great loss, the path through the unknown, and eventual rebirth into spring. It's beginning again.

In the Northern Hemisphere, we feel the Earth letting go, birdsong has changed, and life on the surface begins to dissolve and sink underground. These are the days to finish the harvest and store up for the colder months. I watch the squirrels carry chestnut pods bigger than their heads up into the trees. Life is gathering itself deep inside roots and burrowing into caves so it can rest until the sun’s return. It’s a time of dissolution. Not yet the frozen days of winter, autumn brings the magic required to unravel. It is the doorway between worlds. Whether it’s a garden, a relationship, or a model of reality, autumn shows us that life must descend into winter's death so that it can ultimately be resurrected in spring. There is no stopping it; there is only presence.

We create space to honor the magic of shorter days. We blanket the soil with mulch so it can sleep for the winter. We gather around fires, soup, and stories. We attend harvest festivals, walk through corn mazes, watch the Swifts roost in chimneys; we celebrate Samhain or Día de Muertos—we feel the thinning veil between this world and the next. We remember our ancestors. Because this is a season of dying, we can sense our grief differently.

We are going to die,” I say this over and over, almost every day. I like to remind myself, my partner, friends, and clients; I slip it into conversations at my ceramics studio, and I bring it up when my uncle and I have a call. We are going to die: me, you, all of us, all of this. I want us to keep this close, to remember that this life is short, that only a few things really matter, and that we can be bold in our choices… because someday, our choices will run out.

If you want to go deeper into death and how we humans hold it, check out this book. Someone recently told me that reading it is quieting their fear of death. I love to hear that.