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November
Tag Archives: autumn
Here
I went here
did this
and walked away.
It’s something after the month and a half I’ve had.
~Nikki, The Soul Reporter
Compass
I found a magical trail. If I lived nearby I’d walk it everyday.
It’s a dirt trail off a paved trail. It follows a creek that begins as a trickle in a marsh
Then
Widens through rock, under trees and over tree trunks.
The path itself descends and descends some more until I feel I’ve found my magical place. No one there. Barely even a squirrel, although I wouldnt mind.
The kaleidoscope of color and the continuous creek made me want to see more and more.
The terrain became more eroded. There were a couple of ways to cross over to another dirt path. I tool the easiest route.
Then, as highway noise got heavier, this magical path led here….
My hikes often occur to me as metaphors, a compass to show me where I am and point to what might be helpful as I travel on.
🧭 The compass readings:
🧭 Enjoy, or at least,be present for the journey. I don’t know what lies ahead. It may not be what I hope for.
🧭 The journey I’ve taken so far has brought me to see the two sides of my current compass: a lot of what I perceive to be missteps, creating a lot of loss and trauma has caused me to deeply mistrust my self and my steps (hence taking the easiest way across). However, on the other side, if only I dare to flip it over, there is an opportunity to live more deeply in knowing and leaving more of the fear and mistrust behind me.
&
🧭 To descend is where the magic lives. To ascend from there you know more than you did before. 🍂🍁
Travel on,
Nikki, The Soul Reporter
Compass
I found a magical trail. If I lived nearby I’d walk it everyday.
It’s a dirt trail off a paved trail. It follows a creek that begins as a trickle in a marsh
Then
Widens through rock, under trees and over tree trunks.
The path itself descends and descends some more until I feel I’ve found my magical place. No one there. Barely even a squirrel, although I wouldnt mind.
The kaleidoscope of color and the continuous creek made me want to see more and more.
The terrain became more eroded. There were a couple of ways to cross over to another dirt path. I tool the easiest route.
Then, as highway noise got heavier, this magical path led here….
My hikes often occur to me as metaphors, a compass to show me where I am and point to what might be helpful as I travel on.
🧭 The compass readings:
🧭 Enjoy, or at least,be present for the journey. I don’t know what lies ahead. It may not be what I hope for.
🧭 The journey I’ve taken so far has brought me to see the two sides of my current compass: a lot of what I perceive to be missteps, creating a lot of loss and trauma has caused me to deeply mistrust my self and my steps (hence taking the easiest way across). However, on the other side, if only I dare to flip it over, there is an opportunity to live more deeply in knowing and leaving more of the fear and mistrust behind me.
&
🧭 To descend is where the magic lives. To ascend from there you know more than you did before. 🍂🍁
Travel on,
Nikki, The Soul Reporter
The Month of September
Below is a post from September 2016. It is 11 years since our car accident, and this September also proves heavy. This entire month I have been dealing with the decline of my dear father. He has been hospitalized and now in a TCU (transitional care unit). It is why I have not been writing as much here, and why I thought I’d reshare this post. The lesson on love, death, change continues to deepen and unfold.
Once, many years ago, while going through a particularly difficult time I got this idea in my head I would die on September 16 (0f that particular year). I was reminded of this today, September 16, on my walk. Suddenly, I smelled something foul. I looked to my right and there was a dead racoon in the grass. Several steps later, once I arrived in the woods near my house, a dead squirrel on the path. The bodies were still fresh. Was this a sign?
I thought: death is all around us. I remembered all the death that has surrounded my family and myself since December. On December 11, just as my kids and I were about to watch A Christmas Story, my dad called. He was not himself. He said, Mary Lou died. Mary Lou was my step-mother. Then, in January my husband’s last grandmother passed away. It snowed in April when Price died alone in his elevator. June took Uncle Mel and then, his wife, my beloved Aunt on September 6.
September 6 is now shared with September 24, my father’s birthday, when my best friend from Kindergarten died in a car accident when she was only 27 years old. Along with September 11 and September 29. On September 29th, 2011 I was driving my white Toyota Matrix on a Los Angeles freeway. My mother and 11-year old daughter were in the backseat, my 19-year old daughter in the front seat with me. We were listening to Enya and playing the alphabet game. Suddenly, a large truck with glaring headlights was in my rear view mirror. Before I could finish my sentence about what I saw, that large truck hit my car. The car flew and flipped through the air several times until it finally landed on its side. I remember wondering, am I going to die?
The Toyota Matrix
I have told and written this story many times, and this year, five years later, I notice the story no longer holds the emotions and trauma it once had. Now, what seems to be unfolding are the lessons and awakenings from that day that changed everything. Death is all around us.
But, what does this mean exactly? And, is it death or just change? Here’s what is becoming clear for me— life. I think I have been so afraid of death and that impending shoe drop (in my case a tow truck that comes out of nowhere) that life has been cumbersome. I noticed this heaviness after I returned from my aunt’s funeral. Prior to her funeral, I sat with her for four days while she went through the process of death, of change. I had never been this close to the death of another human being or for so long.
Me and Aunt Flo
Before I entered her home, I was afraid of what I might see. But, all my fear went away when she opened her eyes and smiled at me (and my dad and daughter). All I felt was love. I knew I loved her, but those four days I felt my love for her. I was able to tell her she mattered. This experience is invaluable to me now. But there is a physical, mental and emotional price, at least for me, when going through something like this. That price felt heavy. It felt exhausted. It felt sad.
After the car accident, I carried heavy, exhausted and sad for nearly 5 years.
I feel lighter now. Life is becoming more clear, but not because I have figured anything out. But because I’m not taking it all so seriously and maybe because the desire to live life finally outweighs the fear of living life. I am moving, once again, toward curiosity, beauty, wonder and listening. Listening, as I did on my walk today, that I needed to get grounded. This looked like me stopping in the middle of the forest doing tree pose and volcano breath. This means committing to creating a life that will match my desire to stay in harmony with my higher self and nature, and not the day-to-day grind of this current culture.
I also intend to move more toward what my aunt taught me—love. And, believe me, I am a newbie to love. It’s always been inside of me, but it’s the emotion or state of being that I resist the most. At the least, it makes me feel awkward. At the most, it frightens me as if I might be swallowed by it. But, while my aunt was in hospice I had a new experience with love. As I stroked her hair, held her hand and kissed her forehead as I said goodbye and I love you, love comforted me.
Love is a comfort, not a burden I need to protect myself from. So yes, death, the unexpected, change surrounds us—not to stop us or scare us or burden us, although it can, but to notice it, wonder about it, learn from it and let it guide us to more clarity of life, comfort of love and truth of being.
The Soul Reporter
We’re Closing Down Summer
I bought the mums and make plans for a plant that’s been outside. A man says, how are you young lady I say alright He says I’m working too hard— as he throws large logs on the ground— But I’ve got to heat the house for winter. A woman crouches cleaning up her yard Soon her Halloween display will turn to Christmas. The crickets know what time it is as do the leaves— ombré then a swath of color. I experience the closing down and I’m relieved The summer was hectic The heat horrendous I made it and wonder did I prep enough for winter? There’s still time.
~Nikki, The Soul Reporter
The Journey is not far. It’s expansive.
(1) Tangled
The journey is not far. It is expansive.
(2) The Return
I went for a forest walk this morning. I entered, expectant. Further along, afraid. What twists and turns might I face? As a woman, would a man try and hurt me? As a human in mid-life, more feelings of loss? As a spiritual being, enlightenment? The wondering passed and my feet on the path continued. The journey felt far, and at times I felt tangled within it with no escape, like that branch above (1). As the path turned I found a paved path. It led where I began. The return was so close, and had always been (2).
Nature can be used as a metaphor for our personal/spiritual journeys. It can be symbolic of our relationships with ourselves and others. Today for me, feeling entangled in the forest, and then to find the paved path to where I began, was a metaphor of my journey. Within the journey are many twists and turns, moments of being snared and entangled, to then being pushed into a clear open space. There is darkness. There is light. There is mess, debris and branches and old leaves everywhere (3). All of this tricks the mind that I have gone too far from myself, from where I began, and will not make it to where I am trying to go. But— my feet continue to step. The path leads to where I began and I see I was never far away, I was really never far at all, ever, and will not be again.
Below are the images and metaphors from my forest walk. Tip: if you’re feeling stuck creatively or worried about where you are on the journey, take your own nature walk. See what you see, how it reflects where you are and how it can be used to provide you with some expression and guidance.
This instantly brought tears to my eyes. I see two trees meeting together at the root, joined at the heart and growing individually as one.
Change & the touch of Autumn
(3) The mess of the forest and as it should be: as it is.
Moss: how I love thee. Had I known I could have made a career studying moss I might have changed my major. Seems to me studying moss may be more enjoyable than the study of people and relationships. #IAmASocialWorker
Remnant of summer, still reaching toward the sun.
The Soul Reporter.
The Time of the In-Between
3-4 minute read
What’s Your Expression of Change?
Hello September! It is the time of the In-Between. Have you noticed where you are in your life often aligns with the seasons of the year, and the transitions between them? Do you pay attention to the signs in nature that a season change is coming? What about you— what are your signs that change is coming? What’s your expression of change?
Signs of the In-Between
Yesterday, I planted mums while my hibiscus still bloomed. I hung the fall wreath on the door, added the fall lawn ornaments outside, and decorated the inside with ceramic pumpkins. I did this while the air outside was hot and muggy. This is the time of the In-Between.
Here, in the Midwest, where the signs of the new season peak through and life continues to exist in the season that is leaving, can be quite vivid. The first sign I notice are the sounds during the day of the Cicada, the Locust and the Cricket. It occurs to me this is their final chorus before the air turns cold. In the In-Between, there are days that require a sweater or a light jacket and then back in shorts and a tank top. When the heat returns, there is an abundance of bugs: bees, boxelder and lady bugs— their final jaunt before the cold is here to stay.
It is the time when the deep, green leaves fade. Some begin to turn to their autumn color, and others dry up and fall to the ground. The grass does not grow as quickly, the sun does not shine as brightly, yet still brings warmth on one side of the body while the wind feels cool on the other. The days grow shorter, which initiates a sadness of the summer that is ending and the dread of a long winter. But before this happens, there is the excitement of fall and all that it brings: back to school, pumpkin spice lattes, walks in the woods— stopping to take pictures of the colorful leaves, taking a tag off a sweater that was too warm to wear in the summer, a trip to the apple orchard and making apple crisp, and the anticipation of the holidays that follow.
I am in the In-Between in my life. I am middle-aged. I am transitioning from a life of homemaking to a life of working outside my home. I graduated from college. After 3 months, I did find a job, but it is a temporary job. I am working, but also not for long. I am married, but I have changed. He has changed. We have changed. We find ourselves in the same bed at night, but little else is shared. It’s enough to still be welcomed to our in-laws, and enough to have a short fight. But it’s not enough to feel as in love, or as connected and fully together as we once did. We are in the In-Between.
The In-Between is difficult, and full of possibility. The In-Between means change. The activity of the squirrels, who run through the grass and up the trees, remind me it is also the time to prepare for the changes ahead. The squirrels understand the necessity of storing their food in various places to be retrieved in the winter. The In-Between cannot last, but sometimes it can feel like it will never end. Sooner or later, new life does unfold. The changes we desire and the ones we fear do occur. Our body and soul know this. They also know if we are prepared for the changes or not.
If you feel like your life mimics the time of the In-Between we are in, take a moment to tune in to your body, to your self, your soul, your life. Are there changes you want for yourself? Are there changes you fear coming? What does this feel like in your body? Do the changes, the unknown of this time in the In-Between, make you feel anxious? Excited? Calm? Do you feel you are prepared? If not, how might you prepare?
My Expression of Change
I have been anxious during this time. I feel the anxiety in my belly. I experience myself gripping and clinging, as if I’m trying to stop the changes from happening. I notice my thoughts, which try to control and analyze what is occurring. I also know these patterns. I have been here before. I know change is coming, and it’s coming fast. I know letting go and allowing is the antidote to the clinging and gripping, the controlling and analyzing. I know the transition is happening as it should and soon I will be in new territory. I take deep breaths, get still and consider some of my anxiety could be an indicator more preparation is needed, that I must gather my nourishment for the winter to come. I then begin to seek and gather this nourishment to prepare.
Soon the sounds of the Cicada and Locust and Cricket will fade. The landscape will be less green, and instead flourish with gold, brown, red and orange. Fall will be here. I will gain knowledge and new understanding. I will find resources through relationship and experience that will awaken and strengthen me in this new space. The nourishment I gather will be plenty. Eventually, I will thrive. Just as the snow will accumulate in January, so will my confidence. And in the Spring, change will come again.
I wish you wisdom and serenity during the changes in your life and in your self.
If you feel a need to have assistance and guidance during your time of transition, please contact me @ nikki@nikkidivirgilio.com. Together, we will create a space of support and a plan toward greater awareness and understanding. For a list of services, visit here.
The Soul Reporter.
The Soul Reporter 