I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year. No matter how long I have lived in Seattle and used to the weather, no matter how thankful I am for the rain’s role in our spectacular summers, I dread the long haul of the grey, dark-before-dinner days of the rest of the year. Yet it takes this kind of weather to drive me indoors and savor quality time with my family, whipping up and testing gourmet meals in the kitchen, having a glass of Barbaresco, sitting by the fire and reading a good book. It’s an opportunity to slow down a little, and reflect on where I have been and where I am going.
This time of year also brings the celebration of giving thanks; a time of gratitude, a sharing of the fruits of our labor and the love of our family and friends. It also marks the half way point from fall to winter, an ‘interseason’ referred to in eastern calendars as Essence. I learned about this season from a colleague (thank you Elise!) and find it apropos to the heart of this particular holiday. Essence refers to that which is left after the tree has sprouted and bloomed in spring, borne fruit in summer and lost its leaves in the fall. Everything has dropped to the ground leaving the bones of the tree and the essence of what it produced to now feed its own soil before it goes dormant in preparation for the next year’s cycle.
The essence season is nature’s natural feedback loop, in that what worked and did not work about the entire production cycle will show up in next year’s fruit. If I extrapolate this example out to my own life, I have yet another analogy for understanding and reflecting on my work and relationships. What went well? What has opportunities for improvement? What practices do I consciously and unconsciously employ to navigate my work tactically and strategically? What can I appreciate about what I have learned and how will I deepen that learning? Where am I trapped by the notion of failure so that I may re-establish it as my growth? What do I want for the coming year and how does that fit into the long term authoring of my life?
Thanksgiving is the time to give thanks for our blessings including that which feeds us to ‘produce’ our fruit and bear our unique genius to the world. As we enter the essence season, we have an invitation to appreciate what we have done this year, find gratitude in who we are and how we are growing, and what we bring to share with others. It is a time to appreciate both our own generosity, and the generosity of others, and to tend to the soil of our own trees; capture the mature fruit that now feeds the ground to lay the seeds of what will be our creativity for the next spring.
Until then, may you revel in the Essence of this season.
