I woke up the other day, and it was 60 degrees. I put on a light sweater. Now, I recognize in other parts of the country and world, this might signify something vastly different. 

 

But here in Texas, where the highs have been in the mid and upper 90s for weeks (and this has been a mild summer overall) and the upper 70s at night, dipping down into the 60s is cause for celebration and busting out the boots and scarves and pumpkin-flavored everythings!

 

I love these in-between times. Where the season ahead begins to poke through. At first, it only whispers its name in the wind and disappears, leaving you wondering whether you ever heard it all. 

 

It is easy to see this in spring, as life arises from dormancy like a phoenix from the ashes, but it happens with all the seasons. The slow turning of the wheel of the year. 

 

It is as if you can taste change in the air. 

 

This is partially why I long to live closer to nature and the wild cycles that govern life on this planet. 

 

It makes me better at handling change in my own life.

 

It invites me to live more gracefully with the endings and beginnings that dance throughout our lives, wanting nothing more than to be recognized and honored for the soulful shifts that they are. 

 

When I feel into the energy of this moment, I am reminded that in mama nature, endings and beginnings are not abrupt and absolute lines in the sand the way the Tyrant King likes to visualize them. 

 

They are a slow spectrum, filled with magical, liminal, in-between spaces. There is not a clean break and suddenly fall has arrived and summer is gone, though we may mark it as such on our calendars. 


If we lived according to the truth of our own experiences, natural change is often gentler and more gradual than what we make it out to be in our human-designed world.

 

I feel there is an invitation there, hidden in the depths of that in-between space, which is this:

 

May we hold space for the subtle changing of the seasons that occur in our own inner landscapes as well. May we remember to be with the paradox and sometimes contradictory seeming feelings that endings and beginnings inherently call forth. 

 

The grief and/or relief of what is being left behind.

 

The anticipation, excitement, and/or trepidation for what may lie ahead. 

 

The life that was and the life that may one day become coincide at these threshold times. They brush up against each other like strangers on the street who recognize something reminiscent in one another’s faces. 

 

Can we tolerate the uncertainty in these times and spaces? Can we find the magic hidden within the discomfort of straddling what is no longer and what is not yet? 

 

In the words of Rilke, can we learn to be with what is still unresolved in our hearts? Can we make space for all of ourselves and find soul nourishment in that, rather than treating our lives and our feelings as if they were problems to be solved or seasons to be rushed through?

 

This is what the wind seemed to whisper to me on that cool morning before she died down and was taken over by the late summer sun that warmed the day.