Welcoming Fall

This talk is the first in a two-part series related to the fall season. Central themes to the talk are interconnectivity and reflections on change. A deeper understanding of interconnectivity is a wonderful antidote for loneliness. And learning how to accept change through recognizing its unsuspected gifts helps relieve the anxiety so many of us feel in times of uncertainty. I encourage you to reflect deeply on these concepts and then apply the learnings to the beautiful stories in your life.

Transcript

Hello,

Dear friends.

I think of you and I smile.

This talk is the first in a two-part series related to the fall season.

Central themes to the talk are interconnectivity and reflections on change.

A deeper understanding of interconnectivity is a wonderful antidote for loneliness.

And learning how to accept change,

In part through recognizing its unsuspected gifts helps relieve the anxiety so many of us,

Maybe all of us,

Feel at times.

So I encourage you to reflect deeply on these concepts as you listen to the following story and then apply the learnings to the beautiful stories in your life.

The second part of the series,

Which is in a separate podcast,

Is a meditation on presence and acceptance as these themes relate to fall.

If at all possible,

Please do the practices outside in the beauty of nature,

Whether that be in your backyard,

A park,

A wild space.

And if being outside is not possible,

Maybe you can look out a window.

And if that's not possible,

We can always close our eyes wherever we are and begin to imagine the lovely colors,

Sounds,

Movements,

And smells that characterize fall.

One of my favorite quotes,

I like spring,

But it's too young.

I like summer,

But it's too proud.

So I like best of all autumn because its leaves are a little yellow,

Its tone mellower,

Its colors richer,

And is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death.

Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring nor of the power of summer,

But of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age.

It knows the limitations of life and is content.

From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colors richer than all.

It's green,

Speaking of life and strength.

It's orange,

Speaking of golden content.

And it's purple of resignation and death.

Lin Yutang,

Chinese writer and inventor.

And now for my true story.

Years ago,

Gosh,

Probably almost two decades ago now,

A wild Southwestern sunflower appeared in my backyard.

Did you know that when plants appear in your backyard without you planting them intentionally,

They're called volunteers?

Isn't that sweet?

So this beautiful sunflower volunteered to share its life with me.

So as the small plant grew,

I knew what it was,

And I could hardly wait for that vibrant bloom of summer.

And around mid-July,

The impossibly vibrant yellow flower emerged.

And with the flower came new friends,

The bumblebees.

Have you ever noticed how bumblebees seem to be the exact colors of the sunflower?

Amazing.

As much as I enjoyed the sunflower,

Even as it bloomed mightily,

I also felt a little bit of sadness because I knew the sunflower would wilt.

The green leaves would turn to brown.

The bumblebee would simply disappear.

And from my perspective,

The plant would die.

I felt a sense of aversion to all of these changes.

I think it's so interesting that we have this capacity to have multiple and seemingly conflicted emotions at the same time.

So pretty much simultaneously,

I'm enjoying this beautiful sunflower and at the same time wanting to hold on to it,

Attach to it.

Of course,

It's beautiful.

Why wouldn't I?

And then knowing that I just absolutely couldn't.

And then sort of bouncing back and forth between these two realities.

You know,

There's a great word for when we experience opposite or seemingly conflicting or maybe full-on conflicting emotions at the same time.

And that word is ambivalence.

And recognizing ambivalence,

I think,

Is a sign of some level of emotional awareness,

Self-awareness,

Maybe some level of emotional intelligence.

So no,

If you don't already,

It's not unusual at all to experience multiple emotions,

Some of them directly the opposite of each other,

At either the same time or darn close to it.

So by September,

As we all know,

The flower wilted.

The leaves turned morose.

They lost their color,

Or rather their green color,

And they emerged with a brown color.

They lost their flexibility.

And back then,

They looked ugly to me.

Not too many people take photos of dead plants,

Do they?

I think it possibly reflects on our preoccupation with youth and our perceptions of beauty.

And any time we started to get a little wrinkled up,

Skin starts to maybe crinkle and get a little stiff,

You know,

We kind of view that as ugly,

Don't we?

Yeah,

You know,

I still do that.

I'm working on it.

So our flowers,

Again,

Losing their color and flexibility,

My body losing its flexibility,

That's the truth.

So interestingly,

New learnings,

Unexpected learnings were about to emerge.

So as the dark center of the sunflower turned to tiny seeds,

New friends appeared.

The goldfinch,

Which is a small,

Energetic bird.

And again,

The same colors as the sunflower.

So often their bellies are bright yellow,

And they often have these greens like the leaves,

And their backs are black,

And often speckled with yellow.

Just like the bumblebee,

Just like the sunflower.

So these guys appeared,

Energetic little guys,

Just flitting about,

Getting after it,

Throwing down on their face.

The seeds clearly delighted these guys,

And they pretty much ate with reckless abandon.

I don't know if I'm capable of telling when birds are super happy,

But these guys certainly seem to be super happy.

Yeah,

Except of course when they're fighting over the same sunflower,

But that seems to get resolved pretty darn quickly.

So over time,

The seeds fell to the ground,

Those that remained,

The flower completely gone now.

The stalk hardened,

The leaves crunchy.

And as the season ended,

So departed my new friends.

Sunflower was gone,

Bumblebee was gone,

The goldfinch were gone.

And I felt that sense of sadness more intensely.

I didn't want it to end.

Why would we want joy and pleasure to end?

Why would we?

Then,

Like most things,

Seemingly so important,

I was so sad at the time,

I simply forgot about the whole thing.

On to the rest of the life.

Emotions are so often,

Maybe always,

Just like that.

I like to equate them to storms.

Sometimes the intense emotions can be like the darkest,

Threatening storm imaginable.

Storm comes,

Storm goes,

Blue sky returns every time.

So often when we're caught in those difficult emotions,

Shame,

Despair,

Really hard ones,

You know,

Terror,

Fear,

It just often seems like it'll never end.

During those times,

I often sort of go inside,

Tend to not say very much,

Because when I do say something that's not usually helpful,

Then I've got more problems to undo.

But thankfully,

Every time,

How often?

Every time,

Blue sky emerges.

So,

Fast forward through the winter,

Back to the next spring,

Out there working in the yard,

Getting it cleaned up for the spring,

Like so many of us do.

And as I walked around the yard,

There was a field of tender,

Barely above the ground,

Little sunflower shoots.

Wow!

So the birds feasting had scattered the seeds from this one little volunteer,

And now probably 50 plants reached for the sun.

So,

The question to myself,

Did my little volunteer die after all?

Maybe I was a little too quick to think the sunflower died.

And was my perception of the aging plant as ugly?

A bit too harsh?

A bit too narrow-minded?

You know the answer.

So these new volunteers,

Now we have a whole ecosystem of these volunteers,

We're all living together happily.

It meant more bumblebees,

More goldfinches,

This whole new ecosystem appeared in my yard.

And then I began to ponder more deeply some of the similarities of all these beings.

Remember how close their colors are?

They totally depend on one another for sustenance.

Without one,

There's not the other.

I started to wonder,

Where does one begin?

Where does one end?

Where does the sunflower end?

Where does the bumblebee and the birds begin?

Great contemplations.

We can all realize more deeply the interconnectedness of life.

Our first little volunteer has now become a thriving ecosystem.

As I look out in my yard now,

We're in the fall season,

It's mid-late October in New Mexico,

And I see the brown stalks.

There's still some seeds,

Still some birds around.

Bumblebees have kind of gone,

Not seeing too many of those.

But for some reason now,

I look at those brown stalks and I don't feel the aversion.

Isn't that wonderful?

Isn't it nice?

And sometimes it seems so gosh darn slow.

There's some little shift in our perception.

And this has occurred.

So for the most part,

I'm looking at those brown stalks and I'm seeing them as part of this interconnectivity.

I'm seeing them as part of this never-ending cycle of life.

And I already can see the bumblebee.

I can already see the birds.

I can already see the new volunteers.

They're all there.

They're all alive.

They are always expanding.

And our little volunteer,

Now part of a beautiful,

Thriving ecosystem of which I am so thankful to be a part.

And now this story is in you.

And now this is part of your story.

And now we share this story as part of our meditation ecosystem.

And that makes me very happy.

And I hope it makes you very happy as well.

Because I want you to be happy.

And I want you to be well.

And I want you to be free of suffering.

And I want you to be free of the root of all suffering.

Thanks.

Reviews

Lovely

Thanks for sharing your experience

Thank you, I love the volunteer sunflower story... 🌻💗

Usually fall is my favorite season, but this year, 2020, I found myself dreading it and the long, dark, cold winter it foretold. Last winter brought a global pandemic and I am fearful of more of the same—or worse! Thank you for the new perspective on fall and change and the reminder that not only is change a part of life, it is a necessary part of life. <3

A great little story and reminder of the truth of our interconnectedness and the power of transformation all around us and in us. 🍂🍁🌻 🐝 🐦

Thank you for this wonderful talk that helped me reflect on life, the change of seasons, the universe and me! I really enjoyed it! Namaste 😊👩‍🌾🌻🪴🍂🍃

Such a lovely listen
Such a wonderful reframe
Your smile comes through your voice
Many thanks ♥️

That was a delightful story and I truly enjoyed hearing the adulation in your descriptions and joy in your voice as I listened.

What a joyful pondering, thank you so much for sharing Rick. Such uplifting contemplation. Much love 💜x

I love this. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, the "ambivalence" of autumn, holding both joy and grief at once in my heart, and how it's almost unbearable to feel so much all at once, the red-pink candy-colored maple, the delicate golden gingko...how can we understand and articulate to our own hearts this much fleeting beauty? Your story helps me to remember that every "death" promises new life, that there is no ending nor beginning, really. Just this. Right now. The same as yesterday and tomorrow. It is all beginning and end at once, and we are all a part of it. Thank you. 🐝🌻🍂

What a beautifully told story! Just what I needed to hear today. Thank you!!

💜 Thank you so much for this lovely story. I, myself, have been reflecting on the lives of my grandmother and her 6 sisters, and the stories I remember of my Mother Line. Now, as a grandmother myself, this interconnection seems all the more profound. I will think of these women as Sunflowers, now.

Joyful reflection on the fall season. Years ago a friend told me about volunteers and now I have a sweet reminder of their full cycle. Looking forward to more talks. Thank you so much! 🙏 💜