Formation in the Fallow

Tips of leaves turning russet, cool yellow, and prairie burnt orange. This subtle color scheme glows against the metallic slate blue of the lake, cloud covering making the sun sprinkle its light in less doses, layers that lessen the gleam.

But it is beautiful. Fishermen line the pier, bundled in sweatshirts and hunting pants, poles nestled on the rail. Boats bobbing in the bay, as if the up and down rhythm will bring fish to the surface and into their nets.

The slow morning out here is one deep inhale, hold for four seconds, even longer exhale. October says so much without having to use its words—it simply is.

Call it my fallow season.

Call it determining what needed to go as I managed a multitude of writing projects, work travel, and daily life.

Call it what it is, but what it is is needed.

Fallow: Noun – usually cultivated land that is allowed to lie idle during the growing season

Fallow: Adjective – dormant, inactive —used especially in the phrase to lie fallow

If there is something you need to lay down for a season, this is your affirmation to do so.

If you are burdened by it all-whatever it is for you—let the ground lay fallow. Lean into this shifting season and let go. Let the soil of your heart have space to breathe.

You don’t have to do it all.

As the ground prepares for a long winter of rest and reset, we are allowed this, too.

We reap the bounty of its beauty and harvest, cup its face in our hands, lean in, and say, “Well done.” And we gently lay it down to return to the earth, to take its place in the order of things, make way for rest, surrender, and a death of doing. Dormancy waits, watches for its welcome.

We can rest, we can set down, we can pause on anything we feel doesn’t serve a purpose at the moment. Our hearts, our bodies, our minds can lay fallow. Our hands can unclench from what we are holding; we can release, we can relent on what we are chasing. We can move to the cadence of fall, losing leaves, opening to a nesting ground, believing we are still seen by the One we love when we go slow.

Stay in the stillness, savor the slow.

May we all make way for fallow ground.