The Season of Letting Go
Nature therapy in Autumn
"At no other time does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.'"
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne
Autumn arrives as a bridge between abundance and scarcity, light and darkness, growth and rest. In nature therapy this transitional season holds particular therapeutic significance. As the natural world undergoes visible transformation autumn is a time when the gap between inner psychological processes and outer environmental reality narrows, creating unique opportunities for healing and self-understanding.
Humans remain fundamentally connected to seasonal cycles despite modern attempts to insulate ourselves from them. Our ancestors lived intimately with seasonal change, their survival was dependent on reading nature's signals and adjusting behaviour accordingly. Though central heating and artificial light allow us to maintain consistent indoor environments year-round, our bodies and psyches still respond to autumn's shortening days, cooling temperatures, and changing light quality. In nature therapy we dont seek to resist these responses but work with them, treating seasonal attunement as reclamation of a biological wisdom that supports mental well-being.
In nature therapy, autumn's most powerful gift is its embodiment of transition. Where spring's changes feel hopeful and summer maintains relative stability, autumn presents visible, undeniable transformation that includes loss. Leaves fall, flowers die back, warmth retreats. Yet this isn't a tragedy but a natural process, perhaps a moment to reflect on our own experiences of change, loss, and letting go. The falling leaf becomes more than botanical process – it's a mirror for human experiences of release, showing how endings can be both necessary and beautiful. And its not so simple, autumn is also a time of natural abundance as we harvest the late bounty of crops such as apples, mushrooms and sweet chestnuts which would have tided our ancestors through the lean times of winter. Perhaps a time for rest and reflection as we draw on both our environment and own natural resources to sustain us through the darker months.
The sensory richness of autumn also plays a crucial reflective role. The season engages all senses in ways that demand attention: the crunch of leaves underfoot, the earthy smell of decomposition, the particular quality of autumn light slanting low through bare branches, the taste of cold air, the sight of landscape gradually revealing its underlying structure. This sensory engagement offers profound present-moment awareness, an opportunity to notice how frost has touched the edges of fallen leaves, or how fungi emerges in previously unnoticed places and offers opportunities for broader environmental awareness beyond our internal rumination.
And the season speaks in symbols that require no elaborate explanation: harvest and abundance, preparation and storage, release and decay, the wisdom of dormancy. These metaphors speak to something more fundamental. This "mess" of autumn – scattered leaves, decomposing plant matter, bare branches – is actually the landscape doing exactly what it needs to do There's no striving, no self-improvement agenda, just responsive adaptation to changing conditions.
And these darker autumn days also bring "seasonal affective patterns." Rather than treating autumn's darker days purely as problem to be managed with light therapy and vitamin supplements, we can perhaps explores what this seasonal shift might be inviting. Perhaps the inward pull of shorter days isn't dysfunction but a natural inclination toward reflection, rest, and consolidation after summer's expansive energy. Working with this inclination rather than fighting it can transform the experience from one of depression to one of appropriate seasonal rhythm.
So nature therapy sessions during autumn can often involve simply being present in changing landscapes – sitting beneath a tree over multiple weeks, walking the same path repeatedly to witness incremental change, or engaging in seasonal activities like gathering fallen materials. A practice that recognises that healing doesn't always require talking; sometimes transformation happens through embodied participation in natural cycles. The body learns what the mind struggles to accept: that change is constant, that letting go is necessary, that periods of apparent emptiness precede new growth.
Trees don't resist losing leaves; geese don't question their migratory urges; the landscape doesn't apologise for becoming bare and brown. This non-resistance, this working-with rather than working-against, can provide a living model for approaching our own inevitable changes and losses. By spending time in autumn landscapes, witnessing how nature handles transition with neither drama nor denial, something shifts. The lesson enters not through intellectual understanding but through repeated exposure, through the body's recognition of patterns older than conscious thought.
Autumn, then, becomes both setting and teacher in nature therapy – a season that reminds us we are not separate from nature's cycles but embedded within them, subject to the same rhythms and capable of the same graceful transitions.
