The Art of Letting Fall
Each Saturday, I share a thought-provoking journal-writing prompt here on the blog. These weekly prompts offer a specific topic or question to encourage you to explore your thoughts, emotions, and experiences. You can answer them exactly as they're written, or let them serve as a starting point for a larger, more formal piece of writing. So long as you write something in response, anything goes. But by giving yourself a specific focus, you can delve deeper into your writing and uncover new insights along the way. Feel free to personalize the prompt and make it entirely your own.
This week, I want to write about autumn—and what it's trying to teach us.
The trees are doing the bravest thing they do all year, and they're doing it in public. Every leaf they drop is something they spent the whole spring making. They don't apologize for it, don't cling, don't explain. They simply loosen their grip and let the whole blazing wardrobe go, because they know something we tend to forget: holding on through winter would kill them. There's a reason we call this season fall. It's the one time of year the whole world models letting go—and makes it look like a celebration. This week, let's take the lesson.
Use these questions as starting points for your journal entry:
- Step outside first. Before you write a word about meaning, write about this autumn—the one happening right now, outside your door. What does the air smell like? What's the light doing differently than it did in July? What sounds have left, and what's arrived in their place? Write the season as it actually is, in your part of the world, this week.
- Take the harvest. Autumn is for gathering in. What have you grown this year—in work, in your relationships, in yourself? Name three things you harvested, however small: a skill, a boundary, a friendship, a healed place. Then write about the one you're proudest of, and what it cost to grow it.
- Name what's ready to fall. Something in your life has done its season and is holding on out of habit. A commitment that drains you. An old story about who you are. A grudge you've outgrown. A version of yourself you keep dressing up and sending out the door. Write about the one leaf you're ready to let go of—and be honest about why you've been gripping it.
- Sit with the bare branches. After the letting go comes the empty part—and we rarely talk about how hard that is. Write about a time your life went bare: a quiet stretch, an in-between season, a waiting. What did you learn in the stillness that the full seasons never taught you? What helped you through?
- Keep one seed. The trees give everything away but they never give away everything—somewhere, a seed is tucked into the cold dirt, waiting. What's the one thing you refuse to let fall, no matter what else goes? Write about the seed you're carrying into winter, and what you hope it becomes by spring.
Take one of these prompts, or weave them all together. Or go outside, pick up one fallen leaf, bring it to your desk, and write until you understand why you chose that one. You might let the art images guide you, too. So long as you're writing your way through the season, anything goes.
My challenges and prompts are not interactive. You don't have to come back to link up. No comments are required—just your creativity. 🌻
