Age Like a Dancing Leaf

Reflections made with a hot water bottle pressed on my back

Each morning I let the dogs run free in our yard. The trees have fully transformed and many leaves are making their descent to the ground. As a meditative practice, I enjoy taking some time to watch their transition. Some leaves float, even dance, in their gradual journey from the tree to the earth. Others are clunkier, bashing against branches on their way down, almost like they are fighting this most natural of acts.

There is a lesson to be learned watching the leaves engage in their transition.

We as humans are constantly in transition. We move between jobs, relationships, friendships, locations, and perhaps most obviously, through different stages of our lives. The Buddha taught that one form of suffering is simply birth, aging, sickness and death which are, namely, four types of transitions. 

We can embrace the changes occurring in our bodies or, like some of the clunkier leaves, fight this simple reality that comes with getting older.

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