Lately, the leaves have started to turn in our neighborhood. The air feels a little crisper. The mornings ask for sweaters, and the evenings beg for tea. Something about it feels welcome right now.
I’ve been letting myself sleep in a little on weekends when it's possible. I’m no longer trying to beat the sun to productivity.
And it feels so good.
There’s a rhythm in nature right now that’s whispering: You don’t have to keep pushing. You’re allowed to soften. You’re allowed to let go.
And this year, more than any other, I’m listening.
🌳 A Ritual for My Brother
This month marks just over a year since my brother passed.
I’ve spent the last twelve months in a constant wave of remembering, aching, adjusting, and relearning the world without him in it.
Some days still feel unreal. Other days bring laughter in his memory. But the thread that’s carried me through has been this: choosing to feel everything, and allowing time to guide my healing.
When he died, I made a set of prayer ties; small cloth bundles of intention, grief, and memory, that I hung across my windowsill. I didn’t know how long they would stay there, only that they needed to be.
For nine months, they watched over me as I cried, healed, and found new ground.
And then one day, I knew.
It was time.
I buried them along with a small portion of his ashes in the earth beneath a young tree in our backyard.
A new life, rooted in remembrance.
A tree that would bloom in seasons to come.
A place where grief could become beauty.
Where love could grow in the shape of something new.
It wasn’t closure. It definitely wasn’t “moving on.”
It was simply release - the kind the trees know.
The kind that doesn’t mean forgetting, but trusting that what has been carried can now return to the earth.
🍁 A Season of Reflection, Together
My daughter’s been moving through a kind of shedding too.
Her best friend moved abroad this August, and it changed all our routines. They were inseparable, and now, she’s starting a new school year without that daily anchor by her side.
But she’s not collapsing. She’s reflecting.
We’ve been walking together in the afternoons, watching the trees shift colors. Talking about what we loved about the summer, and what we’re looking forward to. We’ve started welcoming the dark earlier each night. It feels good to light candles. To make cocoa. To put on cozy socks, watch an anime and take things slow.
There’s a peace in this pace. A knowing that nothing is lost, just transformed.
Even she can feel it: “This feels like a good time to change,” she said to me last week. “It’s a little sad, but it's also OK.”
🍂 One Leaf at a Time
This is the gift of fall.
It doesn’t demand we let go all at once.
It simply invites us to release one leaf at a time.
If you’re carrying something heavy - grief, expectations, a version of yourself that no longer fits - this season doesn’t ask you to bloom.
It asks you to trust.
To listen.
To soften.
To allow beauty to grow in the places where pain once lived.
Let go when it’s time, not because you have to, but because your soul knows it’s safe to.
With softness,
Blaze
💛 A Gentle Invitation
If this season is asking you to slow down and shed what no longer serves, you don’t have to do it alone.
Anchored & Alive is a space to return to your rhythm, feel your feelings fully, and rebuild from within.
Learn more about the course here
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