Sweeping Leaves, Stirring Souls
Sweeping Leaves, Stirring Souls A Divergent Spiritual Reflection on Appar (Thirunavukkarasar) Leaves fall quietly. Souls awaken the same way. Appar (Thirunavukkarasar) understood this rhythm of life — that transformation rarely arrives with thunder. It arrives like a leaf dropping at dawn, unnoticed, unannounced, yet irreversible. When he swept fallen leaves from temple courtyards, he was not performing maintenance. He was practicing attunement — aligning himself with the slow intelligence of nature and the subtle movement of grace. Leaves are not trash. They are memories of growth. Each leaf once drank sunlight, held rain, trembled in wind. When it falls, it completes a cycle. Appar (Thirunavukkarasar) did not treat fallen leaves as waste; he treated them as reminders — that all that rises must eventually return to the ground. By sweeping leaves, he practiced a living meditation on impermanence . Most people resist impermanence. He partnered with it. The leaf teaches without speak...
