From The Innkeepers

October 2020 Blog- The Grace of Letting Go

It is hard to give up summer sometimes. We recently had the gift of one full week here at September’s end, where our temperatures were in the high 70’s and the skies were an unusually cloudless crystalline blue. I relished it. I unabashedly gloried in it and spent most daylight moments outside on the land. The deciduous trees continue gathering more radiance with each passing day, and slowly they have begun to dot the landscape of the ground with orange, yellow, mahogany, and brown, as in a pointillist painting like those of George Seurat. The evergreens are shedding their older brittle needles creating soft beds on the forest floor for the deer. As we move from autumnal equinox to the more visibly noticeable shortened days, we bid our long days goodbye and turn inward to the process of letting go.

I accompanied Sharon every week over the past month or so when she went on her forays to the Amish farms. When I was at the orchard marveling at the varieties of newly picked apples and pears that were already present, I audibly bemoaned the fact that we have already had to say goodbye to the cherries and blueberries, peaches, and plums. Lydia, whose family tends the orchard, kind of gave me a puzzled look and responded something to the effect that it’s time for the autumn harvest fruits now, and soon all will be done for the growing season. As if to say, get with the program here, let go of the season past and enjoy the tastes of today’s bounty for very soon it too will be a lingering memory on the tongue.

There is a grace and an art to letting go. Sit with the leaves, they will teach us. Letting go is learning how to release with trust and acceptance that which no longer serves us in order to make room eventually for something new. The grace of letting go has to do with the ability to be with things as they are. Easier said than done when the world is in the midst of a pandemic, a great racial, economic and political divide, and a power grab that fails at creating a world that works for all its inhabitants.

I am the first to admit that I have no earthly idea what newness will be created from that which has been or is in the process of being released. But as I shuffle through the fallen leaves in our woods, and breathe in the clarity of the October air, I pray that whatever this newness is, that it bears fruit for all creatures of the earth to enjoy rather than becoming the harvest of a bountiful crop for the privileged few.

May it be so in our time.

With blessings on all you do.
Marcia, Pat, and Sharon

PS:
Know that we continue to miss all of you, especially those retreat groups who were scheduled to be here in the month of October. We think of you often and continue to look forward to the day that we can safely welcome you back to the Inn. Our home feels your void on a daily basis.

This additional post comes from Denice Barker who was scheduled to be her in October. http://weesied.blogspot.com/2020/09/this-weekend.html  We want to thank her for kind and heartfelt words and beautiful photography.