This is my favorite time of year. It always has been. When I was young, I looked forward to the excitement of returning to school, meeting news friends and exciting new adventures. That same sense of renewal and energy hasn't left as I've reached adulthood. The slow down at the end of the summer allows me to step back, rest, rejuvenate, and prepare to reap the harvest of the fall.

Anthropologist Angeles Arrien, PH.D, author of The Four Fold Way describes the autumn as the time of the teacher. This is a time to be open to outcomes, not attached to fixed ideas about how things should look. The teacher she says, has wisdom, teaches trust and understands the need for detachment.

What does this mean for me? It means that as I move into fall I do so with a sense of wonder and excitement about what will come. While I am prone to wanting things to work out exactly as I want them to, I realize that sometimes there is master plan out there to which I am not privy. The lesson for me from Dr. Arrien is to be open to what may come and to let go, detach, from my rigid ideas of how things should be.

"I have just three things to teach; simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being."

- Lao Tzu , Tao Te Ching (Mitchell)