If you have lived through a Kashmiri autumn, you know the chinar. In Harud, the great old trees in the Mughal gardens and along the roads catch fire without burning. The leaves turn from green to gold to a deep, impossible red. People gather the fallen leaves. Children run through them. Photographers come from far away.
And then, within a few weeks, the trees are bare.
I have watched this every year of my life, and only recently did I realise that the chinar has been quietly teaching me how to change.
Lesson one: change is most beautiful just before letting go
The chinar is never more admired than in the weeks when it is preparing to lose everything. The colour we photograph is the colour of release.
I think about this when people come to coaching in the middle of a transition. A job ending. A relationship changing shape. An identity they have outgrown. They often feel ashamed of the in-between. But the in-between is often when we are most alive, most honest, and most worth seeing.
Lesson two: bare is not dead
In winter, the chinar stands bare against the snow. If you did not know better, you might think it was finished. But under the bark, it is doing the quiet work that spring depends on.
Many of us mistake our winters for endings. A season of rest, of not knowing, of grief, feels like failure. It is not. It is the part of growth that does not photograph well.
Lesson three: deep roots make the letting go possible
Chinars can live for hundreds of years. They survive every autumn because their roots go deep. The tree does not hold on to its leaves because it holds on to something more important.
What are your roots? Your values, your people, your faith, your practices. When those are deep, you can let the leaves go.
The chinar does not cling to its leaves. It trusts its roots.