How the Late Autumn Season Can Support You

What you’ll need in your working life right now depends on where you are in your own vocational Wheel of the Year.

Below I’ll give you a brief overview of the four major seasons I work with so that you can see how the tenor of your worklife is resonating today, and then you can venture down to see exactly how the Late Autumn period can support you in finding greater congruence and ease.

Note: try not to overthink this. Go with what feels like the overall “weather pattern” of your working life right now - the strongest theme. You may just feel an “aha” or “yes!” when reading the description of the season. Go with that.

The Four Vocational Seasons

Fall: Release
This is a period in our working journeys when what used to make sense, feel comfortable, flow with some ease, is changing. The winds have shifted. There is a crispness in the air and a desire to turn inward, to make sense of things again. There is a calling to go deeper, to restore oneself, to accept that death comes for all things, including the roles, projects, and dreams that have been with us for a long time. Something in our working life has become untenable and wants to fall away.

Winter: Integration
A falling away has happened, but what’s to come next is unclear. There is a pause loaded with a million questions. What used to be invisible because of our attachment to old patterns, overwork, or our unwillingness to see is now becoming clearer. We know that there are seeds of possibility within us, but we cannot see or feel them yet, and that can be very disorienting. We are in a liminal, dark, mysterious place without answers or even words to describe what it is that we seek.

Spring: Rebirth
Dawn comes again, and we are feeling the return of life, color, tangibility in our working life. New ideas or possibilities are sprouting, but they are vulnerable - quick to disappear into the dark soil if we are unkind, ignore them, or subject them to everyone else’s judgments. Curiosity and a desire for the new can fill us, and we are finally able to see the fruits of our Autumn and Winter labors. We may stumble or feel naive and foolish walking down a new path, but it is ours to walk, and the child within us is an ecstatic, wise guide.

Summer: Fruition
What was once a mysterious and unknown seed has come to life, and we can now enjoy its fruits. There is a tone of mastery, abundance, and consciousness in our working life that we can relax into. Warmed by the Sun’s penetrating light, we can see what we need to see, and the work is clear. We’re invited to click into our strengths and stay hydrated as we share our skills, talents, and insights with others.

Photo by Stephane Juban

The Textures of the Late Autumn

Between November 22nd and December 21st, the Sun lingers in the mutable fire sign of Sagittarius. Even as the darkness grows, this fire sign wants to move, dance in its power, and feel the heat of focus. In the Tarot, we are working with the corresponding archetype of Temperance: a period in our lives when we are learning how to live soul-first.

The Late Autumn is an invitation to see what remains after the falling away. To reconnect to the inner hearth that animates us, sustains us, on these dark and cold days when it can seem like the great orb that gives us life, the Sun, is weakening.

Of course, what always remains, even when everything around us crumbles, is soul.

This season within a season wants you to remember this: that the trappings of your outer life are finite. Temporary. But within you is an eternal fire that can dance, and warm you, and light your way.

How to Work with the Late Autumn

If You Are in the Season of Fall:

Keep clearing until you find the inner fire again. Remember that the embers are still there, even if you can’t feel any heat or new life yet. See how much you can let go of. Even if it’s only temporary or imagined, see if you can detach from the aspects of your work that feel lifeless. Go into your body and see where it’s gripping, and ask yourself why.

The gripping is your main guiding point right now. Go to what your mind says you can never, not possibly, let go of and dig in. See what stories are causing you to hang on so tightly. Write them down, speak them aloud, and ask yourself if they are still true.

This is the work that makes space for your inner hearth to come alive again.

Recommended practices: the Letting Go guided meditation, free-writing for 10 minutes at a time, clearing physical space in your home, Episode 78: How to Move When You Feel Stuck

If You Are in the Season of Winter:

Inside the mystery of your experience right now, stay very close to what you know animates you. This can be a crafting or creative practice, conversations with a particular friend, or just the knowing that you are being held inside of a transformative container right now called Winter.

It can be very suffocating to believe that you should have more answers than you do. Allow yourself the freedom to not know. Remember that the unexpected can always land on your doorstep, and it’s wise to have the fire on and a tea kettle ready for when it does. Stay busy in soulful ways and watch your inner flame grow.

Recommended practices: anything that gives you vitality - even if it’s not related to your work, consecrating your home’s hearth (the stove, fireplace, or altar), the Ideal Workday Visualization, and Episode 78: How to Move When You Feel Stuck

Photo by Ronan Furuta

If You Are in the Season of Spring:

Your seeds are germinating and even sprouting, which is so beautiful. This can be a rich time of granting them more darkness, allowing them to grow slowly and establish deep roots. How could not knowing the outcome of where you’re headed actually help you to see new possibilities?

When you feel the urge to ask these seeds to grow faster than is right for them - when you feel an impatience - come back to the movement that is within your control and that lights your inner flame. Run. Dance. Make a decision. Make a fire. Say “yes” to a training, course, or experience that’s new and that you may back out of later.

Recommended practices: Capture the ideas that are percolating within you in some way (write them down, record them, draw them), make a list of 5 ways you can move and feel free when you’re feeling impatient, the Empowered Movement guided meditation.

If You Are in the Season of Summer:

Even on your best and brightest days, the nighttime comes. This time of year, it’s wise to reconnect to what’s within your depths. Return to the practices that help you to come back into the heart of you, where you can feel the vitality of all living things.

The guiding question for you at this time is, Am I moving in the way that my soul needs me to? How might your working life benefit with more soul behind it, more of the magic that makes you, You?

Consider also how you’re sharing your gifts. Are there richer, more fun ways to share what you know and the mastery you’ve achieved in your work right now? If now is a time to exchange your talents with the world, how would you like to wrap and offer yours to others who desire them?

Recommended practices: Plan a retreat or intentional, deep break for yourself, the Ancestral Village visualization, come up with 3 ways that you’re currently sharing your gifts with the world and see how you could make it even more fun.

May this Late Autumn period bring you and your work into greater soulful animation. Remember that you are held within these cycles, supported by Life itself as you stretch, rest, and offer your contributions to the world.