September 20 2023

Saturday is the equinox, the threshold of autumn. The leaves are changing color and beginning to let go of their branches, after which they fall to provide cover, protection, and eventual nourishment for ground in the winter months and beyond.

To join with the leaves, here is an offering: a practice for the first two weeks of fall, our own letting go so that something may fall away, potentially nourish something else, and create space for something new.

I wrote this prayer of letting go, vamping off of a prayer from Thomas Keating, which I plan to read and pray every morning for at least the first two weeks of fall.

••••••••

I give up my desire for affection.
I give up my desire for security.
I give up my desire for affirmation.
I give up my desire to get there faster.
I give up my desire to get there.
I give up my desire for acclamation.
I give up my desire for success.
I give up my desire to numb.
I give up my desire for control.

All this space that is now opened up by letting go, I offer it to God as a gift.

••••••••

The invitation is for you to write your own version, using that repeating framework, and offer it out every day for 14 days. If you don’t believe in a god, or you aren’t a prayer person, then maybe you can, like me and my friends in recovery, offer up that energy and space in yourself to any power greater than yourself.

And in regards to recovery, a central tenant is that you are not alone. It is communal work. We believe, we admit, we made a decision, and so on. In this fall practice you are not alone. The trees join in with you, and so do I and others.

This is hard work. Giving up desire for security, for control — awful. But holding onto those desires, a the anxieties they induce, is worse by far.

Who knows what will come to life when we let these things die. Thank you, desire for security, but you are no longer needed. It’s time for something new to be birthed.