The Equinox - A time of Balance
This post is full of healing. Take your time. Read it slowly. Ponder it fully.
Hi! my name is Sam. I am a Gardener and Storyteller of the Soul who weaves shamanism, story-telling and spiritual mentoring with the wisdom of the ever changing seasons and moon cycles. Soft. Simple. Still. is a sacred space where I can share this wisdom with you.
Hello dear one,
How are you today?
Today is the EQUINOX. Autumn here in the Southern Hemisphere and Spring Equinox for my friends in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Equinox - A time for BALANCE.
The Equinox is the time of the year when the earth’s axis is tilted neither towards or away from the sun. It is when both the northern and southern hemispheres experience the same length of daytime and night time.
Equinox - is when the earth comes into BALANCE.
The Equinox is one of the 4 Astrological events in the turning of the Seasonal Wheel (the others being Spring Equinox and the Winter and Summer Solstices.)
AUTUMN EQUINOX - A time of Balance
What does living in BALANCE mean to you?
If you could imagine a see-saw. A see-saw that depicts your life- what would it look like? What colour would your see-saw be? What would it be made of?
Now imagine, what would you see sitting on the left side of the see-saw? What would be on the right side? Would the see-saw be in balance with those things on either side?
What do you need to do to balance it?
What weighs one side down more than the other? What brings the other side up too easily?
Consider what have you been doing that has created an imbalance in your life - maybe you are not getting enough sleep? Maybe you are not eating well or you are working too many hours and forgetting to play and rest? Maybe you are living too much in your mind and not in your heart? Maybe you are giving and giving and giving to everyone else and not to yourself?
What can you do TODAY to come into balance?
What can you do TOMORROW to hold that balance for another day?
Can you look at other parts of your life and gently (or otherwise) tweek them to create a more balanced life…for today, tomorrow and in all ways?
BALANCE…WHAT CAN YOU DO TO CREATE BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE?
The Equinox is also a very significant time of year, because from this point onward the light begins to change.
For those of us here in the Southern Hemisphere, the Autumn Equinox - MABON - as it is also called - marks the beginning of longer nights and shorter days.
It marks the slow descent into Winter,
it marks the slow descent into the darkness.
It marks the slow descent into the quieter days and the even quieter nights.
It marks the time of year when we are invited to begin our journey within.
For those in the Northern hemisphere you will be experiencing SRING EQUINOX - OSTARA. You will begin to experience the return of the sun…warmer days and longer nights. You may wish to read this beautiful piece by
about Ostara and the Spring/Veneral Equinox. I truly love reading Julie’s writings, her weekly writings as well as her pieces on the Wheel of the Year. While I go into one season, she goes into the opposite. It feels like a holding of balance and stability for both of us.AUTUMN - A time of gratitude
It is the time of year when we are reaping the spring and summer harvest. The harvest has been cut and there is an abundance of it. There is enough to pickle and dry for the colder days ahead. This can be an abundance of food or an abundance of ideas and plans that have grown and flourished and shone in the Summer sunshine.
It is the time of year that we are GRATEFUL for everything that has grown - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually during the last season.
WHAT ARE YOU GRATEFUL FOR?
I invite you to write/draw on separate pieces of paper all the blessings that Spring and Summer have gifted you - what would they be? Sunlight. Warmth. Abundance of food. Special friendships. Good health. A new job. Clarity around something.
Use a different colour for each thing you write/draw. What are you grateful for? What are you appreciative of? What beautiful things have Spring and Summer gifted you with that, when you think about them, your heart begins to smile?
Now, place all these beautiful memories and feelings into a jar or special box. Feel the box begin to fill with the essence of BEAUTY, of ABUNDANCE, of APPRECIATION, of MAGIC, of SMILES, of LOVE, of KINDNESS, of COLOUR, of of of
When you are feeling sad or low or lost over the next few months as the darker days and longer nights begin to cover the land and your heart, reach in your box/jar and take out one of your pieces of paper and feel that memory, that energy rise up again and fill you. Fill your heart reminding you of the beauty and magic that is there, in your memory, in your DNA.
AUTUMN - A time to go inward
Autumn can be seen in the story of Persephone and Demeter from Greek Mythology. It is the time of year when the Goddess Persephone - the Goddess of Springtime - goes back into the underworld to be with her husband Hades - the God of the Dead. When Persephone first goes into the Underworld she eats some seeds from the fruit of the pomegranate - the fruit of Hades. Because she has done this she must stay in the Underworld. However, because of her mother Demeter’s (the Goddess of Harvest, and the Goddess of Seasons) grief, Persephone agrees to spend half the year with Hades and half with Demeter. It is during the time she spends with Hades that the land turns from being fertile and abundant to barren and “dying” - it turns from Spring and Summer to Autumn and Winter. Demeter - the Goddess of Harvest - is grieving her daughter. In her grief she lets the land “die” only to be renewed again in Spring time when her daughter Persephone returns to the earth to be with her mother.
AUTUMN - A time of letting go and gently dying.
Autumn is inviting us to gently step into our own inner death. It is a time for us to go inward and ask the bigger questions…
What can I let go of ? What leaves can I let fall? What dead wood can I surrender?
What does death mean to me and how can I truly grieve? (and why do I choose not to grieve?)
What does it feel to know that what I have let go of can be turned into compost to nurture my inner garden for the next season?
AUTUMN - The time of the Inner Sovereign.
Autumn is also the time of year where we begin to realise that we no longer have to do do do, rather we can sit in our own inner harvest, we can sit with our inner stories and sit with the heart of one who has learnt and is now wiser.
It is the time of year that as women we step into our Menopausal Journey. We begin to say goodbye to our bleeding years and know that we now can use that wisdom in another way.
We are stepping into the Mid-life of our years - we are stepping into a sacred initiation, a sacred gateway.
For men, this midlife time is also a sacred gateway. A change is coming and a new way of being in the world is there in front of you.
Autumn - for both men and women - is a time to step into your Sovereignty.
How do you wish to live the rest of your life?
What deeply sustains your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual self?
What do you need to release to step fully into your Sovereignty? Can you forgive - yourself and others? Can you step up into your fullness and greatness? What is holding you back? What is calling you forward?
This is the power and healing of our Autumn Years. This is the power of our Sovereign years.
AUTUMN.
Some see Autumn as the BEGINNING of the year.
To go inward first before one can step out. I feel that going inward is a powerful way to reveal our inner medicine, our inner truth, so that we can sit with this in a deep and powerful way before we start to shine our light and our medicine into the wider world.
My dear friend,
This post is full of healing. There are many invitations here for you to pause, ponder and reflect.
I invite you to take what resonates with you into the season of Autumn.
I invite you to write out the pondering questions and hold them dear to your heart.
I invite you to bookmark this page and come here when you need to.
May the blessings in this letter be with you throughout the season of Autumn.
Until next we meet,
Blessed be,
I would be honoured for you to share what this post meant to you. Maybe you would also like to share this post with your friends. Please do. I would love and appreciate that.
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So beautiful, Sam, thank you for this! I love so much that you're entering Autumn as I'm entering Spring. I imagine us meeting up at the entrance of the cave of winter...you preparing to head in as I prepare to head out. We eat together and tell each other stories of our experiences. We know that this is our special shared place where will we reunite twice a year. ♥️♥️♥️ I also love that you mentioned balance. I think of the equinoxes as the center of the lemniscate, that point of perfect balance.
I love your prompt about balance Sam and how it fits perfectly with Julie’s post. There are so many pulls on our attention that these reminders to come into stillness and question where we’re at are very timely. I always find myself pausing and reflecting when I read your posts and I’m so grateful for that. x