Leaves are falling.
Life is falling. Into the earth.
Fall. Falling. Fallen.
We are falling from one season into the other at Autumn Equinox, on Thursday, September 22nd, at 9:21 am CT, the day when the light and dark are equal in length.
Falling into Autumn.
It can feel like that.
All of a sudden, it seems, the days are shorter.
Darkness comes earlier and lasts longer.
It’s time to light a candle. To come inside. To consider your harvest.
What flowered, spread its seeds, and died?
What are you harvesting from this wild abandon?
For my part, while the Summer was full and beautiful, a few things have blazed out and fallen.
A part-time job I loved is over and the ending still unsettled and confusing.
My brother is gone, returned to the earth.
I am reflecting on this harvest. It’s not what I wanted. And yet, it is.
This eternal cycle of return, of rising from
and falling into the earth.
There is a grace of falling. Of falling into. Of being held, finally grounded, completely surrendered. Into the unchanging ground of support.
There is a release in this.
I am still in the process of understanding the harvest from my losses. And in the midst of this, I am celebrating the abundance of loving holding from family and friends.
I also celebrate, from the eternal promise, that
living is hidden inside dying.
To this, I bow down.
Within the darkness, light is always arising.
Renewal is always becoming.
I am practicing patience and allowing this rhythm to live within as it lives without, for the right timing for renewal to grow from the seeds that returned to the earth.
What is falling, perhaps fallen for you?
How are you living with your harvest this Fall?
If you’d like to include some ritual in your acknowledging of Autumn Equinox, I have a few suggestions on my blog from past years:
- A practice to remember that this life, this harvest, this you-ness is enough.
- A breathing practice to embrace your harvest—both regrets and celebrations.
- A gratitude practice.
If you’d like to practice together, please join me for a Women’s Self-Care, Mini-Retreat on Sunday, October 16th.
Nourishing Wholeness 