The soothing sanity and blitheness of completion,
The pomp and hurried contest-glare and rush are done;
Now triumph! transformation! jubilate!
Walt Whitman

In the Autumn of 1985, I saw Stanley Jordan, the jazz guitar player, in Boston, and his opening act was a comedian who poked fun at people driving around New England looking at “foliage.” What they were going to so much effort to see, he pointed out, was nothing but decay and death…which is true, in a way.

Ya gotta admit, though, those leaves know how to go out in style….

Let it loose, let it all come down….
the Stones

That in mind, this could be a good time to look at some things that keep hanging on, but just might be ready to drop off and die: old hatreds, maybe, or unrequited loves and lusts, old anger, old sadness, old wounds, old frustrations and disappointments, old wanting, old losing, old getting, old insults and resentments, old flattery, old thoughts, old beliefs, old masks, old lies…to let it all out in glorious color, watch it fall and turn to mulch….

*adapted from an earlier version at Yoga for Cynics*