Like a Japanesse Lace Leaf Maple...

I love fall... I love the colors changing, the smell of wind blowing, the long sleeves and pants coming out... Just the fresh crisp smell of it... especially the sunsets... that is one thing about living in Cache Valley... I have come to love watching the setting of the sun in it's vibrant colors screeching across the clouds... even today I gave into the urge, and pulled over to watch the orange disappear so fast from the tops of the sky down to the mountains edge.. all day there was a heavy, low gray blanket of clouds hanging over... but for some reason around sunset, they rose up and took shape!

A long time ago, I was in a class where the teacher compared the seasons of the year to the seasons in our life... I loved the metaphor, and for some some reason this fall, as all of the changes have taken place in the outside, internally I have felt the "winds of change a blow'n" ... yet I do not know the extent of the change that I am undergoing...

My grandma had a Japanese Lace Leaf Maple tree that she had planted at the bottom of her yard... I remember it was never very big when I would look out at it, but it had the most vibrant leaves on it.... but even fall comes to the little maple... which once was not so big, but now is about fifteen feet tall.. One random question I would alway ask people is, 'what is your favorite tree and why?"... this is the one I always thought of...

And yet here is another yoga analogy... there is the 'tree pose'  or other wise known as Vrksasana, is one that is as balance pose. I love the analogy that sometimes the wind blows, and the pose is not always steady and strong... but always, always it starts with the rooting down of our foot...

So where is our foot rooted down? Do was stay connected and rooted in those grounds that nourish and strengthen us.... as our arms reach out and branch out. Do we appreciate the opening up and outward expansion we offer or does that slight breeze that rustles the leaves create tension or do we appreciate it with a smile? Sometimes the wind knocks us down to our roots... but is that bad no, it gives us another opportunity to refocus and try again... I love this quote: ".... Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble, but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward..."

So as the winds of life blow... smile.. relax and embrace the change....