A Little Messy, Like the Forest Floor in Fall

What announces autumn’s arrival to your body?

For me, it’s that first alder leaf, those first rains, and the fungal people pushing up from the underworld.

Perhaps like you, I create a seasonal altar every autumn. A little ceremony of remembering, releasing, honoring, and inviting. It’s one of my favorite rituals of the year. 

This year’s altar has gathered fungi, lichen kin, feathers, stones, photos of beloveds, and the tender ears of a desert hare. Each carries a little story, a relationship, a remembering.

A little messy, like the forest floor in fall.

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An invitation for you:

What if you created a little space to honor the turning season?

An altar needn’t be elaborate, expensive, particularly pretty, or even called an altar. A windowsill, a corner of a desk, a candle beside a bowl of water, or a small collection of treasures gathered on a walk will do.

You might include something that represents what you’re celebrating or grieving, something you’re grateful for, something you’re ready to release, and something you’re quietly nurturing.

What is dying? What is ripening? What is asking to be remembered? What is gestating in the growing dark?

An altar is never really finished. Things arrive, decay, disappear, or get rearranged. And somehow, in tending to all this becoming and unbecoming, we cultivate a little steadiness amid the flux.

I’ve shared more about my autumn altar practice, along with an invitation to create your own, in a new Substack piece, A Little Messy, Like the Forest Floor In Fall.

These practices of seasonal belonging and honoring the fruitful dark are also at the heart of Within the Cave Something Pulses, an annual journey into autumn’s descent towards winter, creative presence, and the fruitful darkness. 

If you make an autumn altar, I’d love to hear about it. Or send me a photo of your little gathering of treasures.

And may we find a little space in our lives for small, beautiful anchors of seasonal becoming.

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Wishing you a week of earthy enchantments and wild autumnal belonging,

Director of Creative Earthiness,
Ryan

P.S. And in the spirit of autumn’s small arrivals and inevitable departures, here’s a poem below about the Queen of Change, the art of noticing, and learning to take our own trusting turn.

FRECKLE The slightest freckle floats in on the surprise-side of the season’s face landing in me with a new breeze blowing through like the Queen of Change sovereign of the land One I might not really recognize until after it has turned the corner on itself onto the next conversation with utter unutterables I grin in recognition, knowing that from its soft kiss I’ll gather mountains of meaning and make a home of it Then, my eyes would widen as I chuckle from inside my fifth gut as I slow my endless doings that try to reserve a place at the table of belonging Knowing a freckle is just a freckle— yet not less than a freckle Knowing I’ll worship its ancient art, its soft elegance that will eventually fade into a full-chested decay with the invisible current of the Queen’s unbending law Knowing the mottled-leaf of me too will drop and like October, I too will take a trusting turn towards the next season of Life (Included in One Bright and Real Caress)