“Fall is the greatest change. In the fall we harvest the gourd, the greatest of fish out of the river, the greatest grains, and our flora and fauna, made by absolute diverse individuals, are turning. The sap is being pulled back to the trunk, leaving us with a beautiful temporal paradox, a cathedral, that change is here and that what we dreamed in winter has appeared in spring and we duly experienced it.

“Fall says to nature, ‘The cycle given to us to make spring available is that we must live the life cycle of seasons and indeed the plentitude that will follow will come again — will come again.’ The tree, the bush, the flora, and even the coloration of the river and its fishes must change and shake off the leaves that were dreamed last winter. They must let a great and bitter wind come and take them away, that they pull everything back and they dream in winter, asleep. I saw this change in autumn, for spring does not give us golden glosses or ruby pinks on bushes and the landscape. Spring does not give us turquoise rivers streamed with copper, a sign it was a dream well lived. But you avoid fall and winter like you avoid wisdom, the finishing of a dream.

“Struggling to move myself three hundred and sixty degrees, in this I saw that day a beautiful landscape that echoed to me it was the end of my suffering and to prepare for a dream of winter where we are inactive, indeed liken unto the high places coated with the great white silence. There is a loveliness and beauty of bare branches that you can see what the tree really looks like. As it stands there frozen, laden with crystals of ice and boughs of snow glistening to temporal sunlight and deep nights under twinkling cold stars, the tree is dreaming its dream of spring, its life cycle. It is beautiful. It is dreaming a bigger and greater and more luscious garment of sap green. It hasn’t died. It is dreaming spring.

“That day I indeed understood. All night long when a pale moon rose, a cold wind blew, gathering clouds came, and by morning all were shining diamonds. I watched it all night and I knew it was time to let go. I was entering the winter of this year and of my age, indeed, to let go and be without suffering, not to be an antagonist but to be in a state of slumber, according to nature. I would allow the howling wind to come and dream the dreams of my spring to come in my inner self, my incarnation of long beauty and uniqueness. That day I loved my suffering and loved that I was naked. I loved that I was no longer the God of terror and that I was finding peace. I loved my life. I prepared for winter and sat on that rock in blizzards and laughed when they came. I loved the falling of the great white silence, for it silenced my yell and made loud my thought.”

“You may not know it, but your body has an amazing ability to repair itself after serious illness or injury. A Harvard doc — and former cancer patient — reveals the secrets to tapping into your own powers of recovery.”