By Marcia Appel — Last Updated: October 9, 2025

During this year’s seasonal flip, summer lingered as fall pushed against it. Though many trees still needed to change color, others stood bare. In just two days, the temperatures plunged from the high 90s to the low 60s. We pulled out wool sweaters, wiggled into jeans, and relegated flip flops to their storage boxes for the winter.

Fall beckons us to sharpen our proverbial pencils, update budgets and life’s timeline thus far, and make plans for the new year that waits patiently for its time to come.

Autumn for me is the perfect season for reflection, for clearing the cobwebs from my mind after a long, lazy summer, and for becoming once again intimate with my personal spiritual path and how I’m living this one precious life. In this frame of mind, I created a new Yin + Yoga Nidra class after we returned from our September retreat in Crete and Santorini, the one to Madeira, Portugal in May 2026 no longer “the next one” but “the current one.”

For the first time in many years, this retreat consisted entirely of new participants. We walked through ancient villages, cooked Greek food, marveled at ruins so old that you could not help but have a renewed respect for the ages, plunged into the sea, and listened to the whispers of the wind and waves. We practiced yoga, Yoga Nidra, and Tai Chi on beaches, concrete slabs, patches of lawn, and chaise lounges in sunlight and under the stars. I witnessed the kindness, openness, sense of adventure, and growing confidence of our intrepid travelers.

On Santorini, one of our activities involved hiking into the cliffside village of Oia to watch the sunset with hundreds of other people from around the world, a moving shared ritual of awe.

Although at 75 I still feel strong, I nonetheless struggled with the idea of the three-to-four-hour journey on a hilly, rock-strewn, cliffside path with no guardrails. I reflected on my fragile left knee, my fear of heights, and my need for a bit of solitude, and I discovered what was real for me: “I don’t have to do this.” My heart leapt, even as I felt excitement for the others who would be choosing to go.

I felt a profound awareness of my love for the path I am on, and I contemplated its history and essence. This led me to write a new sequence for a Yin + Yoga Nidra class I would be subbing when we returned, anchored by a better understanding of the pillars of my path. I named it “The Y Class”, that letter purposefully chosen to explain my philosophy as we grounded and meditated at the beginning of the 75-minute practice. As the students rested before me, I sensed a feeling of community in the quiet minutes leading to the start of class.

Held by the space of Yin Studio in Lakeville, and held by me, the words poured out of me. “The practice I’ve created today,” I said, “is called The Y Class. Not ‘why’ as in the three-letter word. No, just the letter ‘y’.

“I’ve come to see in the autumn of my life an eternal spring,” I told them, paraphrasing the words of the great French philosopher Albert Camus. I arrived at this place, I said, because my long relationship with awareness rests on four words that end in ‘y’: inquiry, curiosity, reality, and equanimity, held together by acceptance. Of all things,” I shared with them, “I am now able to approach my final years with a feeling of great adventure rather than the previous dread.”

While in Santorini on our retreat, I applied these concepts to the question of hiking to that cliffside village of Oia for the ritual of watching the sunset. Reader, I took a taxi instead.

In my mind my process looks like a recipe:

Recipe for a Life’s Path

Combine in equal parts the following ingredients:

Inquiry

Curiosity

Reality

Equanimity

Add a healthy dose of Acceptance and feel peace spread throughout your body from the inside out.

Simple, yet it works for me.

To be able to see – and feel – things as they really are, clear and without the entrapment of beliefs that refuse examination, means freedom. This is the great lesson of my life and the only way to let attendant emotions and feelings flow through an embodied journey.

The greatest philosophers and spiritual leaders encourage inquiry, the deep examination of all aspects of life and your personal journey, to drop pretense, rigidity, and fear. There is a Zen koan by the ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi, who, it is alleged, said: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Though half tongue in cheek like many other koans, this one carries a deep meaning: to make a religious fetish of the Buddha is to miss the essence of what he taught and inhibits pure awareness. To hold so tightly to any spiritual, political, or cultural movement is like placing a veil over our eyes. On the other hand, to place everything under the lens of inquiry – even those beliefs we hold dear – is essential for a life filled with kindness and love.

Sunset in Oia, Watching the Boats Come Home

My most beloved mentor frequently reminded me to retain a deep sense of curiosity as long as I lived. This, he said, would keep my mind, and my body, too, as flexible and resilient as possible and help me in understanding others and knowing what is real. In the autumn of my life, I remind myself daily to approach relationships, activities, questions, work – everything – with an open, seeking mind supported by equanimity, a state of mental calmness and composure. All together, this recipe produces a sense of wonder and freedom.

After class, a student hugged me with tears in her eyes. She had listened closely to my story about contemplating that long, dangerous, cliffside hike. And when she had heard the words, “I don’t have to do this,” she felt a deep release from a sense of obligation she’d been carrying for a long time. She realized she could hold space for someone who’d been important in her life and protect herself at the same time. She created a different set of boundaries from inquiry, curiosity, reality, equanimity, and a big dollop of acceptance.

She was free.

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Marcia Appel

In 2006, Marcia, a former journalist and corporate executive, wrote the plan that launched Green Lotus and planted the seeds of service that are the foundation of its philosophy. "As teachers and healers," founder Marcia says, "we meet students and clients where they are. We learn and grow from each other -- and have fun doing it." Now, Marcia continues to support Green Lotus when owner Merry Beth (MB) Freienmuth calls on her. She continues to write for the GL newsletter and blog, substitute for teachers, teach in the 200-hour teacher-training program, and enjoy time with her family, including her two grandchildren. She bikes, swims, hikes, reads, and gardens. She and MB still co-own Green Lotus Retreats and she finds joy in traveling with you to places near and far.

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