As the Light Lessens: Reflections on the Autumn Equinox
Today is the first day of fall. Here in Northern California, you have to look very closely to discern the traditional signs of autumn. The days are still warm, and it will be a few more weeks before the deciduous trees start to turn their brilliant shades of orange and red and drop their leaves. Of course the daylight hours decrease and the evening shadows come more quickly.
But if I hadn’t seen this beautiful poem from Mary Oliver in my newsfeed this morning, I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to reflect on this marker of our days.
Today marks the tipping point of when we start moving closer to the darkness of winter, with decreasing light each day until we reach the Winter Solstice. This morning I found myself reflecting on the personal, interior version of that experience, that annual journey we take around cycles of light and darkness.
Wesley Baines writes in his article, “The Spirituality of the Autumn Equinox”:
“The voice of autumn speaks in a susurrus of leaves, its breath cool and dry and full of change. It is the winding down of the year, a time of both harvest and of death. More than any other season, people feel a spiritual connection to fall. They feel that they are closer, for a time, to something unnamable and immutable. And indeed, they are.”
…
“Autumn holds a spiritually unique place. Many mistake the mystery and decline that surrounds and follows the autumn equinox for darkness and evil, but in reality, it is about endings—a very natural thing. Every journey must find its end, and fall is the bittersweet embodiment of this.
The physical death and darkness experienced by the land as we approach winter represents something else, as well. It is the external embodiment of the darkness all people contain within themselves—everyone is a blend of day and night, good and evil.
…
“Darkness exists in all of us—we are flawed, imperfect human beings, after all. Darkness, ignored, grows and takes over like a cancer—it is only when it is dragged into the light that we can overcome it. Autumn is the time to face this darkness, a physical reminder of that which we must cull within ourselves.
Fall, paradoxically, is a time of simultaneous bounty and withering; crops are harvested, even as the natural world begins to fade. If we make sure to align ourselves to the progression of the seasons, fall serves much the same purpose, but on a spiritual level. Consider, as autumn sets in, the areas of your life that need to be let go of, consider what no longer serves you, gets in your way, and needs to wither.”
What really resonates for me in this perspective, is the framing of the cycle of the seasons as a metaphor for an endless and ongoing cycle of creation, growth, harvest and letting go, in all aspects of our life. It is endless and repetitive and regenerative. This season of Autumn, and the invitation to embrace both harvest and endings, ensures our ongoing growth through all the days of our lives. After all, it is only by harvesting and clearing the fields in autumn that we can best prepare for the growth cycle that will come again in spring.
Wesley closes his piece with this:
“How can we get in touch with the spiritual side of autumn in our contemporary age? By being mindful and being present. Turn off your devices and simply take a walk. Make your pilgrimage of leaves, being mindful of the color of sky and grass and leaf and stone, of the feel of the air, of the scents and textures and sights all around you. As you do so, ask yourself, "What do I need to release? What are my burdens?". Pay attention to what nature is doing around you—after all, everything has a purpose, including the changing of the seasons. They remind us to keep changing, to not allow ourselves to become stagnant.”
Sounds like good advice to me.
Today I plan to make time for taking in the ephemeral beauty of this season and reflecting on what I need to harvest and what aspects of my life have come to their natural end and need to be let go.
Notes:
Photo: Fall color in Pennsylvania by Margaret Doyle, October 2017
More on Mary Oliver here