MARI Stage 10: The Sacred Work of Letting Go

October makes change visible.

Leaves deepen into shades of red, gold, and rust before releasing their hold. The light shifts. The air cools. Nature begins to draw inward, reminding us that endings are not separate from life. They are part of its rhythm.

In the MARI Great Round, Stage 10 is often known as Endings or Shifts and Changes. It also brings us into the fourth and final quadrant, Dissolving. This is the part of the cycle in which what we have created, achieved, or identified with begins to loosen before we eventually return to Stage 0 and begin again.

The word dissolving can sound ominous. Yet Stage 10 is not only about loss, and it does not necessarily mean something has gone wrong.

Often, it marks the completion of a cycle.

A role, goal, relationship, identity, or way of moving through the world may have carried us as far as it can. What once fit begins to feel too small, too heavy, or simply no longer true.

Personal reflection:

I experienced Stage 10 in my own life when I was an art teacher. I loved art, and I loved teaching it, yet I was becoming increasingly frustrated by the emphasis on technique and the finished product. In my heart, I knew that art could reach much deeper layers of who we are.

I wanted to work more directly with the person behind the artwork and with what was asking to be expressed from within. That longing gradually led me toward art therapy, where creativity could become a way of listening for the voice of the soul and supporting others in discovering their own.

I did not stop loving art or teaching. Rather, the way I had been holding them had completed its purpose. Something deeper was calling me forward.

When the Old Map No Longer Works

Stage 10 is often associated with midlife, a time when many of us begin reassessing what we have done, what we still long to do, and which expectations no longer belong to us.

And Stage 10 can arise at any age.

It may appear when children leave home, a career changes, a relationship ends, the body changes, or life places us at a crossroads we did not choose. Sometimes it arrives after we have accomplished what we thought we wanted, only to discover that it no longer holds the meaning we expected it to.

Some people welcome this threshold. Others experience it as a burden, a separation, or a loss of control. Most of us probably move between the two.

We may feel relief and grief in the same breath.

The energy of Stage 10 begins to slow us down. Our attention shifts from the outer world toward the inner one. Goals that once organized our lives may have been completed, abandoned, or stripped of their former meaning. The familiar ways we have measured ourselves no longer offer the same reassurance.

This can feel disorienting, especially in a culture that celebrates achievement, productivity, and constant forward motion.

Stage 10 asks for another kind of courage.

It asks us to pause, listen, and acknowledge that the old map may no longer lead where the soul is asking us to go.

The Body Often Knows First

A Stage 10 passage may be felt physically as a drop in energy, a desire to simplify, or a need to empty out.

We may want fewer obligations, fewer possessions, less noise, and more room to hear ourselves.

Sometimes the body refuses the pace the ego has been insisting upon.

There may also be a growing awareness of aging, the passage of time, and mortality. This does not necessarily point to physical death. Stage 10 often speaks through symbolic deaths: the ending of an identity, the loss of a familiar future, or the realization that we cannot return to who we once were.

These realizations can bring sadness, helplessness, or a sense of being stuck.

Resistance is natural. Even when we understand that change is inevitable, part of us may continue gripping what is already leaving. What is being asked of us can feel less like release and more like sacrifice.

We may question who we are without a particular role, relationship, accomplishment, or dream. We may feel that our sense of power has diminished when, in truth, the source of our power may be changing.

Case Example:

I think of a former client I will call Jill, a woman in her 50s who came to me feeling distraught and uncertain about where she was in her life. The roles and goals that had once given her direction no longer felt as meaningful, and a harsh inner voice kept telling her that she should have done more or been further along by now.

Through an embodied approach to mandala-making, Jill was invited to slow down, notice what she was feeling in her body, and allow colors, shapes, and images to emerge without needing to explain or judge them. Over time, her mandalas helped her recognize not only what felt unfinished or lost, but also what she had created, survived, and built for herself.

As her self-criticism softened, greater self-acceptance emerged, allowing her to meet this changing season with more compassion and to live more fully in relationship with herself and others.

The Inward Turn

In earlier stages of development, the ego needs to strengthen. We need identity, boundaries, competence, and a place in the world.

Stage 10 does not ask us to erase the ego. It asks the ego to loosen its grip and accept that it is not the center of our entire psychic life.

There may be a turning away from outer approval and toward a deeper inner authority. We may feel drawn toward solitude, reflection, spiritual practice, therapy, creative expression, or the unconscious itself.

What appears on the surface as withdrawal may also be a search for renewal.

Transpersonally, Stage 10 reflects a shift from the ego toward the Self, with a capital S, as the deeper center of psychic life. We may find ourselves entering an inner cave, agreeing to descend without knowing what we will find there.

For some, this is the experience of letting go and letting God. For others, it may be trust in the psyche, the body, nature, or the mysterious intelligence of life.

There can be reverence in this descent.

True surrender is not passive. It asks us to stop bargaining with what has already changed. It invites us to honor loss, reconsider our values, and release the identities that were built around what we accomplished, provided, controlled, or proved.

Something within us may be asking:

Who am I now?
What still matters?
What do I want to carry into the next season of my life?
What am I finally ready to lay down?

Personally, I have always been someone with abundant energy, eagerness, and, dare I say, drive. For much of my life, I was oriented toward creating, building, teaching, and moving toward the next thing.

As the years have passed, especially since the pandemic, I have felt my energy turning inward. I have lost people close to me, some through death and others through distance. I moved to a quieter neighborhood, began working primarily online, and wrote a book, something that asked me to gather years of experience and give them form.

What once felt important has begun to shift. I am less interested in constant movement and more interested in depth. Rest no longer feels like something I have to earn. Nature has become medicine, not simply a place to visit, but a way of returning to myself.

I am still creative and curious. I still have dreams. And I am learning that the next season of life may not ask me to push harder. It may ask me to listen more closely, release what no longer fits, and allow myself to be carried toward what is becoming sacred now.

Completion Is Not Failure

One of the shadows of Stage 10 is the belief that an ending means we have failed.

We may judge ourselves for losing interest, changing direction, needing rest, or no longer wanting what we once worked so hard to attain.

Yet some things end because they have fulfilled their purpose.

A completed cycle does not need to be dragged forward to prove that it mattered. Sometimes the most loving act is to acknowledge what was, gather what it taught us, and allow it to become part of our history rather than the whole of our identity.

Stage 10 may ask us to give up something. It may also invite us to give something away.

This could be a possession, a responsibility, an old grievance, a belief about who we are supposed to be, or the need to remain loyal to a version of ourselves we have outgrown.

Within that release is the potential for rebirth.

Not the quick, polished rebirth we often prefer, where one door closes and another immediately swings open. Stage 10 may leave us standing in the hallway for a while.

The new life may be present only as a whisper, a seed, or the faint sense that something else is possible.

Stage 10 in the Mandala

Mandalas created during a Stage 10 passage may carry darker colors, particularly deep purples, reds, or areas of black. Thick black lines may divide regions of the image. Forms might suggest a downward-pointing cross or triangle, a cave, a skull, a tombstone, or another symbol connected with descent, loss, and transformation.

These images are not diagnoses, and no symbol has only one fixed meaning.

A dark mandala is not automatically a negative mandala.

Sometimes darkness is where the psyche goes to compost what has finished. The image may be holding grief, and it may also be protecting the earliest beginnings of renewal.

Rather than immediately interpreting the image, we can become curious.

What is ending here?
What is descending?
What needs to be mourned?
What might be resting beneath the surface?

An example of the colors and forms typical of a Stage 10 Mandala are darker colors, downward movement, and thick black lines.

When I create a Stage 10 Mandala, it feels intense; I feel the weight and depth of this stage.

October’s Invitation

Stage 10 aligns naturally with October.

Autumn does not apologize for change. The trees release what they can no longer sustain, not because they are giving up, but because the cycle requires it. Before new growth comes a season of bareness, restoration, and unseen preparation.

Numerologically, ten reduces to one, a number often associated with initiative, independence, and new beginnings. At first, that may seem at odds with a stage centered on endings.

Perhaps it is not.

The one is hidden inside the ten.

The beginning is already present within the completion, even though we may not yet be able to see its shape.

The shadow of that independent energy can be isolation, control, or fear of failure. Stage 10 reminds us that we do not have to force the next beginning or travel through change alone.

Our task is not to manufacture certainty.

It is to become honest about what is ending and tender with the part of ourselves that does not yet know what comes next.

As October unfolds, you may want to notice what is quietly asking to be completed.

What has become too heavy to continue carrying?

What are you holding because it is still alive, and what are you holding because you are afraid to release it?

What might become possible if you stopped trying to keep an old season from ending?

The trees seem to understand something we often forget.

Letting go is not the opposite of living.

Sometimes, it is how life prepares us to begin again.

With warmth,

About the author

Mari Grande is a licensed Creative Arts Therapist, coach, and founder of Creative Healing Integration, Inc.
Through the MARI Mandala Corner and her coaching programs, she helps people reconnect with creativity, clarity, and healing in everyday life.