When the Fullness Recedes
by Vicki Kensinger
[Originally published in the Fall 2026 issue of Mount Gretna Magazine. View the complete issue to experience this story in its original design, along with additional photographs and content.]
As the circle of the year, and of our lives, turns toward autumn, there comes a welcome slowing down. As leaves let go and the canopy thins, opening to sky, a certain spaciousness is offered and received by those of us below. In that opening, we can see a bit farther. The fullness of summer dwindles and shifts, and the structure of the forest—the bones of trees—and the shape of our lives are more easily seen.
Summer was a season of abundance—the forest full of leaves, flowers, birdsong, movement and possibility. There was more than we could ever attend to. As we walked through those summer woods, we could not stop to notice every leaf, every flower, every small movement. Instead, we abided within the abundance, receiving what came to our attention and allowing the rest to simply be.
Autumn begins to quiet that abundance. The leaves let go. The flowers fade. The canopy opens. There is less demanding our attention, and in that lessening, there is space to notice what remains. What was hidden by the fullness of summer becomes visible: the shape of the branches, the structure of the trees, the spaces between them. The forest is not diminished by this letting go. It is simply revealing another part of itself.
Perhaps autumn offers us something similar.
Our attention is drawn from scattered busyness toward a more focused rhythm. The slowing may be welcome for some, while for others the more structured days of autumn return, shifting from carefree summer days to something more predictable and steady. Yet even within that routine, there can be a quieting of demand.
As the season progresses, a crispness in the air invites a bundling up in layers. Even as the earth itself is blanketed by falling leaves, so we blanket ourselves. What was exposed in the heat of summer is enfolded and drawn inward. Autumn invites us to hold some things close, to turn inward, and to reflect upon the season of our own lives as the wheel continues to turn.
Perhaps autumn does not ask us simply to do less, but to attend differently. To notice what remains when the fullness recedes. To recognize what is ours to carry and what we might be ready to release. To make room for the quiet in which we can see, perhaps a little more clearly, the shape of the life we are living.
The trees do not resist the letting go. They release what they have carried all summer, making room for what comes next. And as the leaves fall and the forest becomes more transparent, perhaps we, too, are invited to look more honestly at the shape of our lives — the branches that have grown, the places that have endured, the things we are ready to release, and the things worth holding close.
What is autumn revealing to you?
Vicki Kensinger is a lover of the healing power of the written word and the natural world. Her daily journaling practice takes her into the wild terrain of the inner landscape, while her wilderness excursions carry her deep into the backcountry of Ontario via canoe. Mother of five and Gaga to 10, she lives in Mount Gretna with her husband, Don. She blogs at EmmaatLast.wordpress.com and AnAlgonquinAffair.wordpress.com.
