Creating Space in the Body

May you let yourself be so empty that you feel the very last leaf of summer ache and then break away from your fingertips and fall to the Earth to rot

Dear Friend,

You told me yesterday that your heart is broken, but your spirit is alive. You said change is your favorite season. I encouraged you to go write a poem because—even through little black letters on a white screen that bounced off who knows how many satellites and cell towers to get to me—your words rang like bells of creative force. You’re onto something, friend (you always are). Adrienne Rich says, “Change is the only poem.” Octavia Butler said God is change. The Buddhists say change is the only constant.

It's finally fall here. My tomato plant has turned brown (this may be because I gave up on it) and, heavy with the last of two green bulbous fruits, has cracked and bowed its head towards the dirt. May we all be so wise as to crack at our middles and humbly bow our heads to the Earth.

Fall, of course, is the season of change. Fall is also the season of death and grief. Our ancestors knew this. In the fall, we honor the dead. Remnants of ancient traditions still linger in the celebration of Halloween.

Change requires grief. We must grieve how we lived before—the truths we failed to see, the love we failed to give, the pain we endured, and the masks we hid our faces behind. We must also grieve the love we are leaving behind, the version of a relationship or a reality that was once a comfort but cannot move forward with us into change.

When I was a child and adolescent, I had the privilege of attending Waldorf schools. In the Waldorf tradition (which comes from Anthroposophy, which comes from ancient Germanic earth-based spirituality), we celebrated Michaelmas at this time of year. As the leaves fell outside and the wind stroked our cheeks with cold fingers, we sang:

“Sleepers awake,
Hark to the word of the world,
Breaking old summer’s dull, drowsy spell.
Show us the way,
Go with thy spear before,
Forge us the future, thou Michael.” - A.C. Harwood

Then, we would gather as a school in candlelight around shared pots of soup. As wax dripped from long beeswax candlesticks and our spoons clanked against soup bowls, our teachers led discussions on what it meant to carry the light of summer into the darkness that lay ahead of us. I understood then that fall teaches the practice of filling ourselves up with late summer’s harvest and light, sustaining us through the winter.

But this fall, I understand that we are also in the season of emptying. I realize that I need to empty myself in preparation for change. In summer, my body was too full, too heavy, too stagnant to be moved by the winds of change. I’ve been stuffing myself until my light flickered out: there was no oxygen in my body. I’ve been gripping, holding, clinging to where I am and who I am.

The lesson of this fall is to let it all go. To let it die—rot, even—to let myself be empty; let life fill me. I don’t need to fill myself.

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This fall, may you let yourself be so empty that you can hear the song of the sparrow echoing against the dark caverns of your body.

May you let yourself be so empty that you feel the wind blow through you.

May you let yourself be so empty that you feel the very last leaf of summer ache and then break away from your fingertips and fall to the earth to rot.

I read somewhere that grief is just love with nowhere to go.

May you find somewhere for your love to go, my friend.

May you open your mouth wide and let the tangles of grief and love unfurl on your breath, your song, your howl.

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Last week—when I finally understood I needed to begin the process of emptying my body—I went on a hike in the mountains. It was Monday, and no one else was there: just me and the sagebrush and the ponderosa pines. I opened my mouth as I walked and let sound fall out: growls, moans, howls. I closed my eyes and let tears fall; mixing with my snot, they drained down my neck and clavicles. I stomped my feet. I shimmied my chest until I felt my vertebrae jiggle, dislodging from their cemented grief-grip. I yelled, “Get the fuck out of here!” to the crusty piles of other people’s shit I have no business carrying. I coughed, I spat, and I yawned. My body—my wisest teacher—knows how to let go. She knows how to empty herself.

I am still emptying my crowded body. I am still making space for change and life and darkness and light. I am still learning to trust that when I am empty, I am leaving room for something beautiful to fill me. I am still sending my love-grief out in spirals on my breath, my song to the world.

May you hear it too, and join me.

All my love,

Lucia

Friend, if you’d like, tell me what you are emptying out of your body to create space for change? How do you engage in the practice of emptying?