A Chill in the Air

There's a tone of harvest's richness and abundance that ripens in late summer, growing fat and gold until one day you realize you've slipped into autumn. I think it's always been my favourite season. This is the breathing space between the summer's frenzied activity and the hectic winter holidays. The air is cooling and filled with the scents of ripe apples and dying leaves. Where green ruled the view, now all is flame and gold, and a papery rustle accompanies each crisp gust of wind. It's time to dig out the sweaters, to see the new patterns and promise in another school year, to plan costumes and fun for Halloween. But autumn, for all its joys, cannot be separated from the principles of death and loss. We recognize that the world around us is dying, drying out, moving from summer's blush to winter's shroud. Through all the celebrations of the season, we feel that ancient wheel turn. Autumn is a time to contemplate the darkness.

In the world of symbolism, this is the Yin half- dark and quiet, somber, heavy, the feminine side of the classic Yin-Yang balance. Yin is death, emptiness and loss, a wide cup to fill with grief, a time to wait. Maybe this correspondence with the feminine principle is what makes me feel akin to autumn.

In marking these dark things as feminine, I don't mean to exclude them from men. We all feel grief, and all humans are heir to both sides of the classic duality. Still, I think this was a natural association for people to make in ancient times. Through the ages, women have had to deal with loss on a very personal and immediate level. While men were dying in war, it was women who were left behind to pick up the pieces and go on. Women were expected to hold families together when disease and misfortune struck. Traditionally, women were often the ones who prepared the dead for burial, and who, in the middle of their own grief, still had to cook dinner and get the laundry done. (Well, it's not going to wash itself, is it?) Through these ancient associations and expectations, we are all, in effect, widows in training. We are expected to bear up, to offer others comfort, to look into the darkness with courage and familiarity. It's important to repeat here that these concepts are by no means limited to women. All of us mourn, cope, and move on with our lives. My point is mainly that these qualities are historically described as part of the Yin, or symbolic feminine, that forms part of our nature and that they are keenly felt as the world descends through autumn's funeral march.

This autumn and the past few weeks particularly, that shadow has been a looming presence in my world. Old friends have passed into new stages of life, seemingly stable situations have trembled or crumbled around me, and empty spaces are more apparent than ever before. Most recently, the sudden death of a friend and coworker stunned and saddened my work community, leaving us all a little lost and fragile. Even those not openly grieving seem to have wells of sadness just under the surface of their professional mien. The loss is deepened by knowing our friend was a man who loved life and loved others completely, and it is amplified by the waves of grief in everyone his life had touched. The tributes and shared memories have been inspiring and heartbreaking at once.

So, here we are in the darkness again. Here we are enduring the grief and the chill of autumn winds. I have to ask, what do we gain from looking loss in the eye? When we speak of the Yin half of the balance, there is no good or bad in it. The concept does not end in death and loss alone. Yin is also soft, receptive, absorbent and rich. We take in the grief and share it. We comfort others and draw our family and friends closer. We prepare the environment for healing.

Our friend may be gone, but the loss has forced us to recognize what a treasure he was in our lives. We may not have told him often enough, but he was well loved and even admired. We all feel better for having known him, and his death has brought that simple fact into focus. We may be powerless to prevent the loss, but we are spurred to live up to his example and to love others more consciously while we can.

The Yin half is coping with things we can't control, but in relinquishing control, there is transformation. We feel the grief and see the darkness, but those of us who love autumn will know that this is what prepares us for another spring.