This week as October deepens, it seems a good time to consider release and a time to unburden ourselves. The Israel/Hamas war and daily news in general brings heart breaking, frightening images and sound into our homes, along with flash social media messages of hyper-condensed information, including warnings of misinformation and deliberate attempts to further escalate social/political conflict. Our senses, with or without our consent, take it all in and fill our neural circuits with the experiences and beliefs of others.
Historically, autumn was a time to prepare for the harsher times of winter, completing the chores of harvest, food storage, and generally preparing homes for longer stretches indoors. The industrial revolution and then more advanced technology brought us indoors, and now climate change upends patterns and predictability. Still, on a natural level as green fades into the colors of fall, it's a time of release. Today, consider an active release of things and ideas you no longer need. We all have to one degree or another, an inner hoarder who has accumulated more than it can possibly use in this lifetime--not just stuff or objects, but resentments, habits, conclusions and even yearnings--habitual feeling states that are more burdens than life-enhancing, living responses to events. Like the extreme hoarder who has over-filled their living space with no empty spot to physically navigate, we fill our inner space with rehearsal of the past and accumulated habitual reactions, assumptions, speculation-- even metaphysical rule books. There's little room left to navigate the constant new input.
Consider one aspect of your life right now, that it is truly time to release. If more follows, fine--one thread often leads to another. Your life is complex; lives intersect. But something comes to mind, when you read, "it's time to let this go." Time to unburden. (Susan Nettleton)�
For poetry:
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../ThisOnly/index.html
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/.../october-56d23212a5b72
If you have news overload, here are 2 soothing videos: