Seasonal Limbo

"Nature gives to every time and season unique beauty; from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it’s just a succession of changes so soft and comfortable that we hardly notice the progress."
— Charles Dickens
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Here in Eastern Kansas fall usually arrives in October with cooling temperatures and coloring leaves. Yet, today is beautifully warm and breezy. Too warm to be fall, and too cool to really feel like summer. It is ‘tween summer and fall, a sort of no-man’s land of seasons. There is a feeling of waiting, of being held in limbo, awaiting seasonal judgment when the weather will choose whether it is to be summer or fall, at least for today.
 
There are times in our lives when we feel as the weather feels today. Times when the seasons are changing for us and yet we can’t seem to make the change completely.
 
Parts of us are stuck while other parts of us move forward. We are pulled astraddle, unable to fully move forward, waiting for some parts to pull more strongly in one direction or another.
 
We hope that we will be able to move forward, we want to move forward. After all, as the seasons inevitably move from one to the next, so too do we move and grow and change.
 
But as there is so often a return to summer-like weather in October, so do we move backward, held by the attraction of our old habits. It is temporary of course, a last fling with what feels familiar and warm before we fully move forward into the next season of our lives.
 
Today, as the weather drifts between the seasons, I too will allow myself to drift and not push for change. The change will come as inevitably as one season follows another. I do not need to hurry it along. Instead I will enjoy the rest that this between time offers.
 
Gone is the oppressive heat of summer. The cool air trickles through my window down over my shoulder, smelling of drying leaves and fresh mown grass. I will stay safely within screens and allow the mosquitoes their last hurrah somewhere other than on my skin. 
 
The crisp, cold days of fall that fill me with energy and enthusiasm are not yet fully here. I can rest awhile. The change will come and by then I will have gathered up the bits of myself that still long for summer’s warmth and be ready to move into fall.   

Photo by Alex Geerts on Unsplash

Your Spiritual Toolbox

​On the path of personal development and spiritual growth, all of us on occasion slip back into old, familiar behavior patterns. Patterns that we really want to change.  
 
We don’t like it when we slide backwards. We know we know better. Still, it happens.
 
Rather than berating yourself, consider accepting this aspect of the growth process.
 
Think of spiritual development as like the progress of the seasons throughout the year. Do you shake your fist at Mother Nature and decry her last flings with summer? Probably not. Though many of us did that when last winter was slow to move along into spring. Our complaints didn’t hurry things along. The seasons move as they will and spring did eventually arrive.
 
Why tie yourself in a knot? Awareness is the first step to change. Be aware of how you are showing up. Accept yourself whatever that looks like.
 
Relax, rest awhile, know that you are changing and growing. The weather may look completely different tomorrow.