What’s ready for composting?

Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash

When we reflect on the shape and rhythm of our lives, we could do a lot worse than take our cues from nature.

And there’s something about September, isn’t there?

A slightly fluttery ‘new year’ feeling, alongside the shorter days drawing in.

It’s a month of contrasts. A feeling of a new year beginning, while also drawing to a close. Less light in the day, but more colour in the trees. Still a whiff of summer during the day, alongside the beginnings of frostier nights. It’s the herald of autumn.

It’s tempting to feel like autumn is the time for battening down the hatches, facing away from the wind, and holding our breath until the days start to lengthen. But I think that misses one of the lessons that nature can teach us.

At school, we’re loosely taught that autumn is the time that leaves die, and the trees and animals go to sleep; but this is only half the story. The living things we share this planet with know that autumn is the time for gathering, storing, and letting go of what isn’t needed.

A tree knows to let go of a leaf, one of the thousands that sustained it through the summer, when it’s received all the nutrients the leaf has to offer.

Look closely at tree branches in autumn and you’ll see next year’s buds already there, being filled with the energy and nutrients they need to unfurl in the spring.

Meanwhile, the fallen leaves give nourishment to fungi, worms, and other creatures that live on the woodland floor. It’s all gently mulched into the rich matter that’s needed for next year’s growth. In nature, nothing’s wasted.

So, rather than being the death of one year, autumn is actually the beginning of the next: the first steps of renewal.

Katherine May puts it better than me:

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”

— from Wintering

So, a few autumnal things to ponder:

• What might you be holding on to that’s finished its work of sustaining you?

• If you released it, what might it create space for?

• Which parts would you like to compost, helping to lay the rich ground for what comes next?

• Which area of your life might you direct your stored energies to?