When The Air Smells Like Endings

November 26th — The air smells like rotting mushrooms and leaves. The season is shifting again, quietly, without asking if I'm ready. 

The Calm Between Seasons 

There's a certain melancholy that lingers in the air when autumn begins to fade.
The colors lose their brightness, the earth turns soft and damp, and the forest carries the scent of endings — a mix of decay, rain, and silence.

And yet, there's something strangely peaceful about it. The world doesn't resist this change. It doesn't cling to the last leaves or fight against the darkness. It just lets go — completely, unapologetically.

Maybe that's what this season is here to teach us.
To surrender a little.
To stop trying to hold everything together when it's time to rest.
To trust that the letting go isn't the end, it's part of the quiet renewal we can't yet see.

The Soft Grief of Endings

Every shift of season carries a small grief within it. Not the kind that breaks you open, but the quiet ache of realizing that something familiar has ended. The warmth, the light, the easy laughter of long evenings — gone now, folded into memory.

But grief doesn't always mean loss. Sometimes, it's simply the body's way of acknowledging change. Maybe the scent of wet soil and fallen leaves isn't just about decay, maybe it's the earth's way of remembering too.

Nature doesn't hurry through this part. It takes its time to rot, to dissolve, to rest.
And maybe we could do the same — to honour what has ended before rushing to what's next.

The Beauty in Decay

There's a strange beauty in the way everything falls apart. The leaves, once golden, now melt into the soil. Mushrooms rise from the damp darkness only to vanish again.
The forest doesn't mourn; it transforms.

In a world that teaches us to preserve, perfect, and polish everything, nature reminds us that letting things fall apart can be an act of grace.
Decay is not failure, it's transformation in slow motion.

Perhaps we are also allowed to decompose our old selves. To let the versions of us that no longer fit quietly return to the soil of who we once were.

The Invitation to Rest

As the light fades, the forest pulls inward. Animals disappear into burrows, plants retreat into their roots. And still, we humans try to keep blooming, under bright screens and endless expectations.

But we are part of this same rhythm.
We are meant to rest. To pause. To breathe between chapters.
What if resting isn't laziness, but wisdom — the kind that keeps us from burning out completely?

Maybe the darkness isn't something to overcome, but something to enter.
To sit with. To listen.

Becoming Part of The Cycle

Nothing in nature is wasted. What decays becomes nourishment for what will grow later.
Every ending quietly feeds a beginning.

So perhaps our task is not to fear the end of things, but to trust their purpose.
To believe that what feels like a loss today might become the soil for something tender and new. What if we trusted our endings as much as we celebrate our beginnings?

A Gentle Reflection for You

As the seasons turn and the air grows colder, we are quietly invited to look within.
To notice what no longer feels alive, what's asking to be released, and what parts of us are ready to return to the soil.

Maybe not everything needs to be saved. Maybe some things are meant to fade, to make space for something softer, truer, and more aligned with who you are becoming.

What are you letting decay this season — so something new can quietly grow later?

If this touched something quiet inside you, come sit with me awhile — there's more softness waiting at @selflavie. 🥀 

Soft hugs,
Selflavie