This episode invites you to dwell for a few minutes in the wisdom and beauty of autumn, this season of transition and paradox, the shoulder or hinge season here in the northern hemisphere between the hot, abundant, active, playful, energetic summer and the cold, dark, hazardous depths of winter. What does autumn mean to you? What does it convey about life? What images, memories, sensations feel rich for you? And with the poet David Whyte we'll ask, "What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?"

The last in a series exploring grief, this episode looks at the possibility of reemergence after devastation -- as manifest in the resilience of the natural world after the destruction wrought by a hurricane, or the coming of spring after the pain of deep winter. Drawing on Parker Palmer's wisdom around the difference between "heart broken apart" and heart broken open," I point to the ways that a broken-open heart can have room for MORE: Grief AND hope, grief AND love, even grief AND joy.

Grief is incredibly hard work. And it's sacred work, not just something frivolous to indulge in while neglecting the "real" work that we're "supposed" to doing (like "getting past it" or "staying strong" or "making a living.") And the contours or "geography" of grief can resemble actual geological landscapes, from soaring and plunging, wild, dramatic mountains to endless, flat, monotonous plains -- each of which has something to teach us, questions to pose.