Autumn Eco-Ritual: A Path Through Desire, Ripeness, and Decay
Late summer into autumn is a liminal stretch. The gardens are heavy with harvest and the arriving winds still carry lingering summer warmth. Standing watch, we’re able to notice ripeness and rot all at once: fruit swollen and sweet, leaves already curling toward death. These cycles are not abstract metaphors but lived truths that our hearts know deeply.
Desire, like fruit, ripens in heat. It needs time and nourishment, as well as conditions that aren’t always comfortable. In the intensity of summer’s blaze, what we long for becomes illuminated. We are called into our hunger for change, for connection, for pleasure.
To taste the sweetness of desire, we must also face transience. Moving into autumn, we learn that creation and decay are not opposites but companions. Just as harvest is inseparable from the humus beneath it, desire blooms alongside endings.
So often in therapy, I witness the fear that letting go means failure. The end of a relationship, a shift in identity, a dream that no longer fits all may resemble a loss too big to face. But autumn teaches us another truth: decay is part of the cycle.
Connecting with the Earth invites us to witness these cycles in nature as mirrors for our own inner lives. A walk in the woods during fall is not just a walk. It’s an invitation to remember that grief, endings, and change are natural. The forest models for us that nothing is wasted, and everything feeds what comes next.
One practice I love to offer in this season comes from Regena Thomashauer’s work: brag, gratitude, desire. It’s a ritual of claiming, honoring, and longing — and when rooted in nature, it becomes even more powerful.
Brag: Like the rings of a tree, name what you’ve done, survived, or grown into. This isn’t arrogance. It’s truth-telling. I made it through. I created this. I faced that.
Gratitude: Like the soil holding nutrients, name what sustains you. The people, practices, or places that have kept you rooted.
Desire: Like seeds waiting in the dark earth, name what you long for next. Not from lack, but from the abundance of your aliveness.
To add to this trinity, I would like to add a reminder that before we step into newness, we will inevitably need to prune away what no longer is meant to stay. To honour this, invite rot.
Rot: Like an overripened fruit, this life cycle is complete. Name what is no longer in season and what needs to be pruned away so the compost may sustain new life.
Try this outdoors. Find a tree, sit by fallen leaves, breathe in the cool air. Speak your brag to the branches. Cup soil in your hand and feel into your gratitude. Find and scatter seedpods, allowing the wind to take them, alongside your desire. Let the forest hold it with you.
Together, these practices let us walk the threshold of abundance and impermanence with more presence and less fear. They remind us that life is not about hoarding fruit or clinging to perfection, but about participating in the ongoing dance of ripening, falling, and feeding the soil.
