Guten Tag, Reader,

The sweetness tickled my nose as a deep breath carried it through my nostrils. Immediately after, my brain registered bitter and earthy hitting my olfactory system on a soothing wetness, so different from the dry (and annoyingly loud) air that’s being forced through the vents in my house to shelter me from the approaching winter and its blunt.

Smelling a fall forest weaves a thread that connects me far, far back to my forest-walking ancestors (and, apparently, to the areas of my brain that are now craving warm soups with sweet barley, earthy lentils, and bitter kale.)

The Composition of Forest Perfume

The scent that hits your senses when you spend (or perhaps invest) in a fall forest comes from the decomposition of organic matter. Leaves, branches, dead animals, and other bits and pieces accumulate on the forest floor throughout the year, but most obviously during the fall. This layer is often referred to as the litter layer.

Then, the decomposers enter the scene. Tons of microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria break everything down, releasing volatile compounds that make up the forest’s autumn perfume.

While fall is often referred to as the season of decay (implying an end), I love the word decomposition and its musical connotation. Plus, there is a promise to curiosity that the parts that composed the original piece are now available again to make something new and different.

And, of course, nature, as the greatest creator of all, does just that: re-composing what once was leaves, feathers, needles, sticks, bones, and petals into a rich, fertile soil layer that supports diverse life.

Your Life as a Litter Layer

As all my projects have recently turned to natural allegories for human life, I invite you to consider how we constantly add experiences to life’s litter layer. Everything gets added, nothing rejected:

• achievements and disappointments
• each thought once thought, and each belief once held
• all ideas that were used and those that were discarded
• the scraps, the good, the great, the terrible, the foul, the forgotten filler

If you let your true nature use it all, without judgment or sentiment, if your creativity and intuition get to re-compose it all…

…what might flourish?

I have two offers for you today that will strengthen your true nature’s capacity to flourish on the soil you create:

The Midlife Wilderness Expedition Winter Adventure launches in January.

If you are ready to pause adding more information and instead turn the wisdom you already have into fertilizer for your unique passion project, join us at the virtual campfire. This is a unique opportunity for personal growth and expansion, sure to motivate and inspire you.

​Learn more here​

Or maybe you are ready to go Rogue?

Going Rogue : to begin to behave in an independent or uncontrolled way that is not authorized, normal, or expected [Merriam-Webster]

Join Angie and me on our WildHER Rogue River Adventure next September. Respond going Rogue to this email, and I will gladly email you the details.

I will see you back here in two weeks. If you liked this letter, please forward it to a friend.

Always on your side, truly,

p.s. If you got something from today's letter, why not buy me a coffee? I am keeping my writing AI-free, so I put much work into it. You can leave me a tip here.

p.p.s.: If you want more of me than a letter every other week, you might enjoy hanging out with me on social media:

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