Autumn - The Season of Balance and Letting Go

For much of my adult life, I intensely feared death -- death of my loved ones, fear of my own mortality. Now, after many years of studying Taoism with Grand Master Lu, I understand that death has a purpose, and that its purpose is for the good. Like Autumn, the season that energetically is about grief, sadness, and letting things go, its purpose is for balance. If people, animals, plants, and so on never died, then this planet would be so crowded that no one could move. Evolution would be at a standstill. We'd all be millions of years old, so old and bored and sick of each other, we could barely enjoy life. Balance, the energy of Autumn, takes care of this -- an essential part of the cycle of life, here on Earth.

I love the idea that we all get to begin anew many times over. Same spirit, different body. We get new experiences every lifetime, new places to call home, many different loves in many different forms. Over the millennia, karmic growth enables us to evolve as spirits and eventually graduate to another dimension, another plane of existence. One that we can't even comprehend with our limited human minds. Some call it Heaven, others call it Nirvana; who knows what's really out there, waiting for us?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I would definitely prefer to evolve, be reborn every 90 years or so to start over with a clean slate. To enjoy a new life, an exciting journey full of new possibilities. Variety is so fun and so expansive. Letting go of the old allows us not only to experience the new but also to expand our imagination and selves through creativity and exploration, with new gifts, new circumstances. Hopefully, with some of the wisdom we've gained from other lifetimes.

There's nothing quite like cracking open a new book and enjoying the thrill of discovery, or watching a new movie and being on the edge of your seat the entire time. As a child, I loved to play "make-believe," trying on different roles and different costumes, swishing around with a crown as a princess or casting magic spells as a sorceress. Each life's new body is like a new costume, a new role, and when we're done with the latest play, curtain closed, finis, das ends, el fin, la fin, το τέλος, النهاية, 结束, we're headed onwards and upwards to the next exciting show...