Tag: equinox

Fall Changes

Fall Equinox lands on Monday, September 22nd, 2025 at 11:19 am Pacific time.

We had a sudden cooling and moistening here starting at the beginning of September, which felt like Fall coming in. And now I’m starting to wear socks and we had our first fire in the woodstove, so the turning of the season is here!

As we turn towards Fall, I have been listening to the themes alive in and around me…

What is my harvest?
What needs to fall away?

And the answer I am receiving is not what I expected.

I thought I would write about Fall—the coming into fullness and harvesting, the allowing of falling and letting go, the taking stock and realigning, the reorientation toward winter and rest…

And I guess I am, but not in the way I thought!

I find that my harvest this Fall is about letting go of writing this seasonal blog for now. I am ready to simplify and realign with my daily living.

I’m still here.
I’m still available for spiritual and life coaching should you feel that calling.
I’ll still be offering singing and wild church and…tea!

And my downsized website is still around for support—you can click on any of the categories to the right to pull up blogs with those themes or use the search bar on the top right. For example:

You can also find practices, including a presence-practice e-book, meditations, and healthy recipes here: https://katytaylor.com/practices/. And I’ll keep my calendar updated: https://katytaylor.com/calendar/.

But I won’t be dropping into your inbox with regularity as I have for many years.

I will miss emailing as it’s been a way to keep in touch—not just me to you, but you who emailed me back to connect.

Please feel free to reach out!

And you can always let me know if you’d like to hear about my ongoing offerings by contacting me with the “Contact Us” to the right or replying to any email. I send a monthly email about gatherings, which usually includes at least one zoom sing in addition to in-person, local offerings. 🙂

May your Fall harvest bring you
exactly what you need!

And if you would like some seasonal inspiration now or in the future, search for “Equinox” or “Solstice” on the top right of any blog.

Fall Equinox 2024–Lying Down

Fall Equinox falls on Sunday, September 22nd, 2024 at 5:43 am PT.

It marks the beginning of Autumn in the US, and in the Celtic calendar, which aligns more closely with where I live in the PNW now, it’s the midway point, with Lughnasadh in early August as the start.

Veggies and fruits are being harvested and finishing up ripening in the last warm rays of the sun.

The light is changing—more angled, shining later on the gardens, highlighting the coming darkness.

And the sun is rising later and setting earlier—I find it surprising to wake up in darkness again!

Nancy Paddock’s poem “Lie Down” is a wonderful call for this season:

Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.

Now in Autumn, the busyness of summer is slowing and we are being invited, like the leaves on the trees, to drop, to return, to slow down, to lie down as we move closer to winter.

Sometimes this invitation comes from somewhere deep within and the bodysoul has no choice but to respond.

This happened with my pre-cervical cancer scare 10+ years ago. Receiving that diagnosis brought me right to ground and forced me to reorder my life to include more rest, more self-care, more lying down…

Or a client with a major depression who ended up needing mental health support in a hospital. She received a strong call to return to the ground of her being and to work on building a new way of body, heart, and mind in order to rise back up into living.

And sometimes we find ourselves out in the living earth, and the invitation comes from an other-than-human being.

Like it did for me on retreat last month. I found myself captivated by a big old Doug Fir stump who was obviously returning to ground, very slowly.*

Sitting, praying, singing, grounding with this stump being.

Breathing and opening the fronds of my heart with the sword fern at theirs.

Dropping thoughts, over and over, into the earth.

Taking in all the life growing in and around.

It was raining steadily so I did not physically lie down on the earth, but I did with the rest of my bodysoul, allowing myself to dissolve with the rain into the ground, with the decaying life.

Letting go of trying to know, letting go of being separate, letting the ground, the stump being, and the forest hold me.

And when it was time, I rose up with the earth still in me to return to the human world… and then returned to practice with stump being again and again over the rest of the retreat.

As the leaves fall and we move with earth
deeper and deeper into Fall, toward Winter,
may we find ways to lie down
with our bellies to the ground—physically or not.
The earth is always here waiting for us.

* On retreat, all electronics were off and stashed, so I have no picture of this being to share.

Spring Equinox 2024–Coming Alive!

Spring has been quietly and not-so-quietly growing since early February in the Pacific Northwest. Spring Equinox marks the middle for us, and for some areas, the beginning of Spring.

In 2024 Spring Equinox falls on March 19th at 8:06 pm Pacific Time. This is a time when the day and night are close to equal, with the days becoming longer and longer until summer solstice is here!

The living earth gives us so many ways to participate in Spring—aligning with the growing light, practicing balancing, making way for the invitation to new leafing and budding and lengthening…

This year, I’m drawn to the invitation to join with the aliveness happening all around us, to enter into the movement, the vibrancy, the joy, even the noise of Spring.

The varied thrush is calling her long high whistle, the peepers are returning to the pond to call to their mates, and the robins and migrating songbirds are showing up to sing. Life is awaking!

Wintertime called us to rest and be quiet so we could be ready for Spring’s energy, and now Spring is here calling us to more!

This poem by the poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer showcases a bird we know well here, the Kingfisher. We are always excited when Kingfisher visits us with their distinctive call!

“Beyond Quiet“
From bare branch to bare branch
kingfishers weave the dry tick
of their call through morning—
as if sticks are rattling,
as if stones are clattering—
and whatever part of me
that is longing for quiet
is invited into the racket.
I say I want peace,
but what the heart really wants
is to know itself
as part of everything,
to belong to the world
of grinding and trilling,
scolding and chattering,
to knit itself into this raucous day,
strident and so alive.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Winter’s rest and peace give way to Spring’s aliveness!

Of course, we need to carry rest with us and still make time for it, but the invitation is always is to knit ourselves into the day, even one that is strident, in order to be so alive!

How will you participate in the invitation of Spring?

How will you knit yourself into Spring’s
fresh, new aliveness?