This autumn let’s stop and observe nature: what lesson can a leaf give us?

We are in a suspended and precarious time, in which the previous securities are in the balance. First the pandemicthen the war and now the consequent economic crisis has destabilized the social, political and cultural assets that we believed had been consolidated for decades. Also many of the rights won in the past centuries are now once again uncertain, if not suddenly canceled with a wipe of the sponge. On a personal level, the precariousness into which we have been thrown has revealed false certainties and facade balances on which many of our relationships and lives were tightrope. And so today everything crumbles and falls apart on several fronts.

How can we live this precarious and unstable time? What can we build on? Are there still basic certainties on which to base our lives or is it time to trust uncertainty and precariousness? I take inspiration for some reflections from the autumn in which we now find ourselves and above all from the leaves and from the lesson that they offer us annually.

I think leaves really have a lot to teach us if we give ourselves the chance to hear the message which they silently transmit to us. In fact, if during autumn we observe a leaf, any leaf, and stop for a while to admire it, we can first notice its warm beauty: its colors attract and fascinate us; its shades, which vary from green to yellow to red through oranges, enchant us.

We also notice cracks, some breaks, of the cuts that time has inflicted on the leaf. Life not only gives us vigor and energy: it sometimes hurts and inflicts more or less painful wounds. Nevertheless, the nuances, the contrasts, the cuts and the wounds in the leaf are mixed in a harmonious whole which appears to us in an overall beauty that leaves you speechless. We are fascinated, bewitched, surprised.

A beauty that, when the leaves sprouted in the spring and then flourished in the summer, we had not noticed. It is only now that they light up with autumn colors, that their specific individuality appears to us. Before we were indifferent, almost homologated to each other: each leaf was similar to another. But now that they are worn, lit, eroded, we notice their singular beauty: no one is alike.

And they aren’t perfect. On the contrary! If we look closely at them they are pitted, cut, semi-decomposed… yet they appear fantastic and wonderful. They have a truly unique charm, thanks to these imperfections! It is thanks to the fractures that time has inflicted on them that their singular beauty now emerges – as the refrain of Leonard Cohen’s Anthem song goes, “there is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in“(” There is a crack in everything: it is from there that the light emerges “).

Furthermore, these autumn leaves are fragile and precarious: a gust of wind or a heavier insect that lands on them or a drop of dew is enough to detach them from the branch to which they are still feebly clinging and make them fall to the ground. Yet they let themselves go with confidence until they settle on the earth where they will gradually be decomposed by atmospheric agents and will become fertile humus for a new life. They trust and trust in this vital transformation process, letting go.

That letting go which is an essential step in the spiritual journey of each of us. Matthew Fox writes in the book In the beginning it was joy: “Spirituality should lead the way by proclaiming the truth and practice of a healthy Negative Way. This journey would consist of letting go and letting be, breathing deeply and trusting empty spaces and silences ”. Like a leaf that trusts and trusts in autumn, letting itself go with confidence into the void to fall to the ground and transform, in the silence of winter, into fertile humus for the blossoming of spring.

So is the life path of every living being, including us. “Panta rei” said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus in the 5th century BC: everything always flows. “Wu Wei” taught Taoism in the 4th century BC in the East: not to act and let yourself go to the flow of Life. “Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed”, the French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier said in the 18th century. This is what a simple ordinary leaf teaches us every year in autumn.

Now that the leaves are worn, lit, eroded, we notice their singular beauty: no one is alike.

Precisely to us who would like to always be green, fit, exuberant, luxuriant, on the track. To us who hate every stretch, every wrinkle, every wound inflicted by life. To us who stubbornly cling to the mirage of eternal youth. To us who sadly live the arrival of our autumn and do not know how to abandon ourselves and let ourselves go. To us who hate winter, dissolution, death and cling, however and always, to any antidote in order to always remain healthy.

How many lessons could a simple autumn leaf give us, if only we listened to it in obsequious contemplation! Life flows: everything is born, grows and changes. Nothing remains identical to itself. Everything is part of the great flow that generates and destroys and regenerates everything. Even a leaf, which detaches from the tree and falls to the ground, becomes the beginning of a new life cycle. And so do we!

So why not stop every now and then to observe nature and learn lessons from a simple leaf this fall? It could be a useful spiritual exercise to train ourselves, like the leaf, to let ourselves go to the flow of life. Wu Wei. Panta Rei. Everything is transformed.

This autumn let’s stop and observe nature: what lesson can a leaf give us?