changing colors

Have you ever wondered why the leaves change color? Or perhaps you are one of the few people who remember the reason from your middle school science class.

I had forgotten and got curious about how all these amazing colors emerge in the fall when there was so much green just weeks before. The simple explanation is that with less sunlight and cooler temperatures trees produce less and less chlorophyll. (That’s what makes the leaves green.) When the tree stops producing chlorophyll the other chemicals in the leaves show through making the leaves a rainbow of colors.These colors were there all the time but were masked by the abundance of green.

Often losing something is seen as a bad thing. Losing your job, losing your favorite socks, losing your hair.

But often it’s within a loss and the new space that something new emerges. We shed one to make room for another. The loss can feel overwhelming and hard because we can’t see around the corner of life to see what is next.

Tree pose is a powerful posture to ground down and get connected into the earth. It also offers the space to stretch up and spread your branches. It invites you to open,  to let go your current way of being  (green?) and open up to reveal the other hidden colors within you.

Go outside this week and be a tree. Feel yourself losing your primary color and softening into another beautiful version of yourself. You get to choose the color.

What do you pick? Sink into that and see how it feels. Smile.