We’re taught to think of January as the beginning, but in nature-based traditions, fall is the reset. The air shifts, the light softens, the leaves let go, and we step across a threshold that is both ending and beginning.
Machaelle Small Wright of the Perelandra Institute speaks about Nature Intelligence and the way seasonal energy carries a vibrational vitality. Summer stretches us outward into long days, high energy, and expansion. Fall, on the other hand, invites a pivot. The vitality doesn’t vanish; it spirals inward. It gathers depth and direction, disguised as a winding down.
This isn’t about hibernation. It’s about streamlining. About letting go of what’s scattered so we can focus on what matters most. That slowing isn’t weakness. It’s medicine. It restores potency.
And yet here’s the paradox: our culture insists we keep ramping up—produce, push harder, perform. Meanwhile, the spiritual narrative often suggests fall is simply cozy retreat, pumpkin spice, and pulling back.
But Nature’s wisdom isn’t telling us to stop. It’s telling us to collect, regroup, and focus.
Yes, we go inward. Yes, we rest. But this isn’t passive. It’s about paying closer attention, claiming our inner authority, and directing our energy where it matters most. It’s about clarity.
Lately I’ve been sitting with this as the world feels like it’s on fire. How do I show up—and push back—when summer’s blaze is waning and I feel the inward pull of fall? At first I worried: I need that fire. We all do.
My fear was whether we’d still have the inner fire we need for change—the fuel for fighting injustice, protesting, calling our reps, standing on the front lines. That fire matters. But fall reminds me that even this kind of energy can’t be all blaze, all the time. If it never resets, it burns us out.
And that’s when I realized the fire is still there. It’s just burning closer to the core. I’m not blazing outward. I’m holding a cooler, more directed flame.
Fall teaches us a new way of moving with power. Not fast, not frantic. Focused. Intentional. We learn to fuel ourselves by paring down. To notice what’s essential and let the rest compost. To step into creativity as clarifying energy—not just the art we make, but the force that shapes our lives, our politics, and our world.
Nature reminds us that letting go isn’t retreat. It’s the beginning of a more potent, more truthful engagement with life.
So if you’ve spent the summer fighting the good fight, blazing bright, and now find yourself humming Let it Go with a pumpkin spice latte in hand, know this: both can coexist. The slowing is part of the cycle. The fire hasn’t gone out. It’s simply settling lower, steadier, and more purposeful.
Let fall reshape you. As you release, know you’re distilling something more powerful: your agency, your focus, your truth, and the creative vitality you’ll need for what’s ahead.
So as fall unfolds, I invite you to notice: what needs to be released? What is composting? And what focused, potent energy is waiting to rise in its place?
Because the world doesn’t just need us busy. It needs us rested, refueled, and alight.
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Thank you for this perspective on fall, Stacy. You make me think of planting bulbs in the fall - plants we won't see growing or blooming until the spring. Yet we plant, believing spring will come.
Thanks for reminding me about Machaelle Small Wright's 'Perelandra'. I loved her book 'Behaving as if the god in all life mattered'. I didn't realise there was a whole lot more where that came from and now I'll get back into learning from her too.