I’ve always had a deep appreciation for the forest. It’s a space where I find myself the most at peace. I’m contemplative, curious, and inspired when I spend my time wandering through the woods. I feel like I’ve garnered a great deal of understanding about the way life works through my self-study of the natural world. Growth, beauty, wonder, community, the importance of season – all themes that have helped me navigate my understanding of how to show up during my time here. I appreciate the freedom I have in the woods – the ability to roam wherever I choose. I can take off my hiking boots and wade through the river, or climb the branch of the nearest maple tree and gain the vantage point of the bird that was just recently perched there. How liberating it is to belong to, and be a part of, the natural world. 

Autumn is here and I take notice of the forest floor littered with fallen leaves.  As I wander along the foliage cemetery, I can’t help but reflect on nature’s process. Another season, another cycle. It’s necessary for the world to propel forward – to grow; to change. I look to the branches of the trees that sit bare and notice the few remaining leaves that cling loosely to their life source. They’ve reached the end of their days. Leaves bud, leaves grow, leaves die, leaves fall.  So do we. I’m currently experiencing my Spring  –  entrenched in a space of wonder that nourishes the possibility of what could be; while others are embracing their Autumn – a place of collected wisdom and an awareness of knowing what is, and what once was. There’s a beautiful synchronicity, wholeness, and certainty that accompanies this idea. My Spring is here, but my Autumn looms in the distance. It’s natural. It’s how life works. It just is. 

It’s this neutrality I feel towards this natural process that captures my mind. I don’t associate the death of those individual leaves with a terrible tragedy. Nor do I associate the budding of new leaves with an inherent goodness. I appreciate and accept both parts of the process for the roles they play. They need to coexist to be whole and to give meaning to one another. 

This is nature operating the way it’s supposed to operate – unattached to the outcome. I think about how many species and organisms experience this cycle every day, but it’s such a regular occurrence that the magnitude of its impact doesn’t even register on me. Nature’s vantage point is one of neutrality. There is no good or bad. There just is. 

I was introduced to a Taoist fable about a farmer and his horse that illustrates this idea of neutrality, and it’s helped root me in my understanding of it.  

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‘Once upon a time, there was a farmer who lost a horse. All the neighbours came around that evening and said, “That’s too bad.” And, the farmer said, “Maybe.”

The next day, the horse came back and brought seven wild horses with it. All the neighbours came around and said, “Why, that’s great, isn’t it?” And, the farmer said, “Maybe.”

The next day, his son, who was attempting to tame one of these horses while riding it, was thrown and broke his leg. All the neighbours came around in the evening and said, “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?” And, the farmer said, “Maybe.”

The next day the conscription officers came around looking for people for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. All the neighbours came around that evening and said, “Isn’t that wonderful?” And, the farmer said, “Maybe.”’

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I’ve always believed there to be a lesson buried in the thick of what we experience – something that adds a piece to the gigantic jigsaw puzzle we construct as we progress throughout our lives.  I thought that if I allocated enough time, those pieces would fit together in a way that allowed me to arrive at a reason for things unfolding the way they did. The Sunday mornings of my youth certainly encouraged me to believe in an all powerful being with a master plan, and that everything – ‘good’ or ‘bad’, happened for a reason. But as I continue to grow, life seems to deliver experiences that aren’t always accompanied by a coherent justification. One glance at the heartbreaking atrocities happening across the globe is enough to pull any belief system into question.

In the past few years, a number of people in my life have been hit with devastating news. The majority of that news has been health-related – various forms of cancer, chronic illness diagnoses, and unexpected death. These are seemingly healthy people who lived life the way they were told they were supposed to – a strong emphasis on healthful eating habits, exercise, and getting enough sleep. They were kind people who gave back to their communities, made time and space for the people they met on the daily, and showered their families with love and support. They found joy in the every day, and appreciated all the simplest forms of happy. These were ‘good’ people. But despite the inherent goodness I felt was embodied in these friends and family members, they became the targets of these life-altering conditions. ‘Bad’ things were happening to these ‘good’ people, and everything I’d been taught about how this world is supposed to operate suggests this isn’t supposed to be the case. The rules I once thought governed life seemed to be losing traction.

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t allowed enough time to pass for an answer to be revealed to me, or that my eyes aren’t open as wide as they should be. Maybe the faith I once held for a superior being with a master plan has been poked with one too many holes, or that the notion of ‘everything happening for a reason’ renders somebody’s tragedy warranted, and a stepping stone to our further understanding of the world – an idea that feels almost sadistic, and no longer resonates with my insides.  The very solid ground I once stood on with some of these beliefs has crumbled under my feet as I dig for the truth. And I think what I’m finding is that the truth is buried in something much more simplistic. At the macro level, we’re all just an extension of the natural world, and this is simply nature doing what it does. Life isn’t happening to us, or for us – it’s just happening. And the piecing together of the puzzle is simply us choosing the meaning we extract from the experiences we encounter as we wander through it.

The people being affected by these diagnoses are people I love dearly. Many of them have played integral roles in raising me to be the man I am today. There’s a deep anger and sadness in me that coincides with how unfair it all seems. But reframing these circumstances with a neutral lens has allowed me to shift the pain associated with the initial confusion to that of acceptance, understanding, and gratitude. As we wander into a further progression of illness, the perpetual level of immense sadness I’m encountering means I was also fortunate to experience an equivalent level of immense love, joy and happiness. The lowest of lows carve a direct path to just how high those highs were. And I think the blending of that entire experience is, in essence, what our time here is all about. Much like the cycle of the leaf I watch departing its tree branch and gracefully floating toward its final resting place on the forest floor, the harder moments remaining in this last season are enveloped by a fullness, beauty, and richness found in the culmination of all the seasons those lives have lived. And to me, that feels like a beautiful way to frame the human experience.