It’s November, late autumn, season of shedding and letting go. One of my spiritual teachers told me years ago, “wisdom is knowing what to take up and what to put down.” Or perhaps another way of saying it is, where to put one’s attention, or energy, or awareness. I’m sure wisdom is more than that, but I’ve loved the image of picking up something, whatever it may be, and putting something else down, or letting go. Right now, the beavers in this bog in the photo above are literally picking up sticks and logs to prepare for winter, and swimming with them through the water to their lodges at the far end of the beaver pond. Though you can’t see them doing it in the middle of the day. There’s a great wisdom living in them—the beavers—they are worth contemplating as teachers of creative adaptation, perseverance, enjoyment of their habitat. I’ve had the privilege of visiting this family for a year now. They, the beavers, are starting to prepare for winter and activity is slowing down though the branches and twigs of their winter stash keep increasing. I will miss them during their winter slow down. They don’t hibernate, it turns out but they do slow down.

Another friend, who lives in a woodsy place, loves clearing up sticks and twigs in her yard, especially in this season. Her woodpiles are much neater than the beavers. But she too, has mastered the art of knowing what to pick up and what to put down.

Four autumns have passed since my late husband, Willy, died. So much of grief is about learning and relearning over and over what to pick up and what to put down. The spiritual teacher who gave me that piece of wisdom about wisdom was Sumati Marut, aka Brian Kelley Smith, a lion’s roar of a man and teacher and friend. He was at home in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, a comparative religion scholar and joyful lover of life. He became Willy’s friend, which was wonderful for them both. He died, sadly, a couple of years before Willy. The sixth anniversary of his death was October 19th, autumn here, spring in Australia, where he lived. But I think of them both, the two big hearted, great spirited men, smiling at each other with so much love, and laughing and laughing. I am grateful for the remembered laughter, the joy in life, and the straightforward wisdom of doing what needs to be done, right in front of one. I think of the reading from Ecclesiastes so often read at funerals, “to everything, there is a season, and time for every purpose under heaven.” The beavers I watched all year seem to know that instinctively. Once there was a terrible rain storm here that damaged one of their lodges. The next day they were out repairing, slowly, stick by stick, mud pat by mud pat, their home, with care and gentleness. Not arguing with the rain or the heavens, or the mess, just knowing what needed to be picked up and what needed to be put down. Marut would say, “It’s like this now.”