This is Kari from MamaBloo chiming in today for Me Ra!

A few days ago a friend and neighbor posted something on Facebook that got my attention. He had been out raking the yard and also listening to Carrie Newcomber’s song where the question is posed:  Do leaves fall or do they just let go?  Since I am caught in that crazy space of only listening to the Backyardigans soundtrack or Taylor Swift, I am pretty much out of any music that might appeal to an adult.  So, admittedly I hadn’t heard this song before.  But the notion of the question of whether or not leaves fall or let go has  stuck with me.

I am viscerally drawn to this idea that the leaves might actually have some control over their own fate.  Not the practical aspect of it, of course.  I mean they are going to wind up on the ground.  That is inevitable, right?  But the control comes in how they perceive their journey.  If they FALL, then well, the changing season takes its toll on the leaf — sending it on its way, making it depart from tree.  It speaks more of what the leaf has lost.  Plus, falling is just plain scary!  When we are kids “Falling Down” is cause for skinned knees, and band-aids, and running to mom while holding back the tears until we are safely wrapped in her arms.

But “letting go” is fun.  Letting go is about holding onto the monkey bars and letting go to feel the wind in our hair, to breathe deeply, to feel our hearts beat a bit faster, to reach out and grab the next bar and, if we miss, to revel in how our bodies absorb the shock of the landing with more ease than we predicted.  I love the idea that the leaves are letting go. That although they “know” they are destined for the ground, that their journey to the soil is supposed to happen, that it MUST happen for life to go on…that even though they know this, they take part in the journey.  They release their hold on what has always sustained them and float to the ground in a swirl of yellow, red, and brown.  Then the leaf waits for the kindergartner that will come by and pick it up, running to his mom, exclaiming, “This is the coolest leaf in the world!”

May we feel freedom to release our holds,

Kari

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