The day felt like one of frazzlement and lethargy and not doing and not getting done. In some ways it felt like a giving-up kind of a day, a giving-in kind of a day. It was only at the end of it that I saw it was really just a releasing kind of a day, that we were heading towards the Equinox where we shift from the light half of the year into the dark. This is the time for releasing.
The Autumn is where we most clearly see the dichotomy of nature. The harvest time, the time for gathering in, is also the time for letting go. The time of bearing fruit is also the time for seeding.
The natural world is cyclical. It is only in the human mind that we insist on beginnings and endings. In nature there is no beginning, no end, there is only middle. Continuance. Constant change. Perfect imperfection.
So while we're looking to harvest the year, we must also be thinking of seeding the next. The rest does not come between the two – the harvest & seeding – but after both. The rest comes in the darkness of winter, and we can prepare for that now. Must prepare for that now. And we do so by gathering in the harvest of this year, laying in our store of memories and happiness to see us through the dark days. And we do so by seeding our plans for the year to come, knowing that they will lay dormant during the cold months and the dark days.
In this world of bright lights and the eternal quest for progress and youth and newness, we have forgotten the importance of the fallow and maturity and age; we have forgotten the importance of the darkness.
All things begin in the dark: in the earth or in the womb or in the dreamtime.
When we think about Autumn and what we can learn from the rest of nature at this time of year, it is this: prepare to rest.
In the year-as-a-day the autumnal equinox equates to sunset. The time of the fading of the light and the coming of the dark, the time of slowing down, not resting but preparing to do so. It is the time when the trees allow the sap to sink back into the roots and the leaves to wither and fall.
This is the time to prepare ourselves for the cold and the dark of winter, to understand our need for rest. This is a time to consider how we will nurture our need for slowness and warmth. This is the time to retreat into our burrows. By connecting with the earth at this time, we can learn to withdraw, a little, from the world, to set up our winter store, lay in comforts, make the shift from salads to soups, warming foods that can be stored, pickles and chutneys for preserving the abundance and for gifting. This is the time to lay in apple cider vinegar and honey. This is the time to revisit our reading lists and decide what will comfort us through the evenings when we have the sense to turn off the electronics and settle into the half-light. It is the time to reconnect with the ancestors and recover the stories for telling round the fires to come.
The winter will be some time coming, but just as the night follows the glow of evening, the winter follows the glow of autumn, and the fire-colours of both are a reminder of the coming dark, a nudge to prepare our hearths and our hearts to welcome the darkness as natural part of the cycle.
And yet, simultaneously, it is the time of seeding the deep-growing things, the keys and acorns that fall and are buried. The uneaten fruit of missed opportunities will only rot on stony ground if that is how we choose to witness it. We can choose otherwise. We can see those seeds and berries that we did not harvest, those ideas and opportunities we weren't around to catch or let slip through our fingers and we can acknowledge them, and we can know that as they sink out of our grasp, they are not gone, they are seeding, seeking warmth from the earth to sprout again in another spring.
The lesson of the missed opportunity is merely to recognise what opportunity looks like and how it feels to not at least try to grasp it.
It will fall as often onto rich ground and grow again. Our job is to remember the scent of it, the sound and sight of it, and be willing, next time, to get scratched as we reach out to grasp it.
We will celebrate the Spring in due time, but now is the time to know that without Autumn there can be no Spring, and without Autumn there can be no point to Spring. Endings are beginnings are endings.
This is how the year turns, how the planet turns, how our lives turn. The Autumnal Equinox is a time to reflect on such things, and while the astronomical equinox is but a mere moment in the cosmos, it follows that we are likewise, and so we can make our own rules as to when to honour it. It does not need to be a specific day or a precise moment. We are human. There is indeed a precise milli-second when the light half of the year moves into the dark half, but we humans cannot and do not need to perceive at that level of exactness. We simply need to note that the daylight hours are shortening and the dark ones lengthening. We simply need to walk our country paths or city parks and note what Mother Nature is doing and listen to her lessons, gently told by mere example.
The harvesting of the year ending, and the seeding the year beginning. May you be blessed in both, as I gratefully acknowledge that I am.
