It’s Autumn, the season of the metal element in Traditional Chinese Medicine: a time for both letting go as well consolidating our decisions in preparation for the days ahead. Of course, this particular autumn, we’re also dealing with an anxiety-provoking election. After a conversation about how challenging it is, at times, to stay positive, my good friend Mary Platt, an inspiring Yoga teacher, shared this quote from Aldous Huxley’s utopian novel Island. I hope it helps you stay inspired and uplifted, too, whatever is happening around you. Remember, the energies of inspiration and courage are also abundant during this time of year, if we remain open to them.
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.
So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.”
