We’re deeply in autumn in New York City, where I live.  Our weather is changeable, we are headed into the cold, and as daylight savings time ended, it is becoming fully dark at 5 pm.

Many years ago I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.  He describes the being we all are as the blue sky, and that no matter what the weather — cloudy, storming, raining, or gray, the blue sky of our selves is always present — the clouds and storms are temporary.  Like our thoughts, struggles and troubles they come and go.

Here’s a photo I especially like with the blue sky peeping through a “hole” in the clouds.

I spend several hours every day in front of my laptop computer, looking into the screen, writing, researching, reading.  I made a conscious decision that during these changeable autumn days I would look at the sky every day.  There have been few really clear blue sky days and when I saw the brilliant blue in the midst of many other cloudy, gray or rainy days, I felt joy.

This fall I felt myself waiting for the leaves to change, a little impatiently.  Then one day, it seemed that almost overnight, Nature showed off her brilliance and color.

There were many small changes happening within the trees, invisible to the naked eye, that precipitated the dynamic change.

As a coach, I listen deeply to my client’s words, always keeping in mind the Blue Sky of her self, sometimes obscured by the clouds of her current issue.  I listen with my whole self and observe that the shifts in body and speaking are communicating, reflecting thoughts.  I wait through silence with comfort knowing that her brilliance will emerge.