Summer has officially ended!!! It feels so fleeting looking back on it, such a whirlwind of activity. We had a busy summer, traveling to see our children, spending some time at the beach with family and friends and getting a new puppy! (Luna, a Cavapoo – she’s an amazing puppy!)
The fall equinox was on September 22nd this year. Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about the significance of the equinox and how it can relate to our own lives.
The fall equinox is a time where the energies of light and dark are held in balance, as the equinox is the day when the length of day and night are perfectly equal. Post-equinox, the days continue to grow shorter and give way to longer nights, marking the start of the slow descent into winter. The days will continue to shorten until the winter solstice. It’s a time to pause, and notice the duality of life – how light and dark coexist.
How does this affect us? With the light and dark in perfect balance, I’ve been thinking more about the “balance” in my own life. Which areas do you feel most balanced and which areas do you feel a bit off? There are days where I feel like I’m on a teeter-totter, desperately trying to find my center.
I think that the first step to finding your balance in awareness that I’m “off balance,” and the need to find it again. Sometimes I work so many hours, I ignore all the signs that I’m off balance, and continue to trudge forward until something in my body – like getting sick, stops me in my tracks. Oops – guess I was really out of balance… Time to reign it in and slow it down!
A great reminder for me is turning to nature to find my center. Watching Mother Nature, knowing that the cycles of life require a true balance of dark and light, just like we need time to sleep in order to replenish our energy for our waking lives. Nature needs time to rest and renew as well. Watching nature turning inward toward this place of transition from fall into winter is an act of balancing. The trees are getting ready to shed their leaves, a sense of “letting go,” then turning inward toward rest and respite for the winter. Nature is always in perfect balance – embracing a sense of surrender, grace and trust in the process of moving from one season to another. The transition rests on the one point of balance – the Equinox.
Taking some time to ponder that we live in a world of duality – that dark and light must coexist together, as this sense of duality is the nature of all things. We can move to a place of acceptance, and approach our lives from a place of stability, acceptance and steadiness – like a tree does just standing in the forest.
So go ahead and “play” on that teeter–totter, and bring some lightness to the process of finding your balance. When you fall off, you can go back and try to find your center. Something as simple as pausing, taking a few moments to breathe a few deep breaths (equal parts breath practice: breathe in for 3, hold for 3, and exhale for 3), or walking around the block and being in nature may help to find your center and serve as a reset button.
Finding our balance could be a process of great joy and excitement or chaos and overwhelm, or anything in between! Being in the moment and accepting what is present in the moment is the beauty of it all.