This article is also available as a 30 minute podcast episode on Spotify with musical selections to help create the perfect atmosphere for your Equinox meditation.
Today the sun enters the sign of Libra. The sunshine of day and the darkness of night will occupy equal time in the heavens over the Earth. It is the Equinox.
In the northern hemisphere where I live, it marks the beginning of autumn. Here in Kansas, the trees have not showed any sign of changing and the heat hasn’t let go of its reign just yet. The soil is hard, and deep cracks have formed in my yard under the savage late summer sun. The verdant green tones that covered every visible inch in the last few months have given way to crispy browns and yellows, not from a shift to cold weather but from a struggle to survive without rain for too long. The temperature was in the 90’s yesterday. It doesn’t feel like fall.
Still there are signs that summer is coming to an end. The fireflies have long vanished and the nights are no longer filled with the screeching sound of cicadas, which have been replaced by a more pleasant chorus of chirping frogs around my house. There are more and more spiders sitting vigilant over shimmering webs that span across the walking paths, and they’ve grown to impressive size by this point in the year. While the grasses and petunias in my yard have gone brown, the wild native flowers like sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, verbena and asters are thriving. This is their time to shine.
In Kansas, late summer giving way to fall means festivals. Apple fests, Corn fests, Spinach Fests, Art fairs, Renaissance Faires, Farmers’ Markets, neighborhood parties, music festivals and more. Midwesterners love festivals. Its finally not 110 in the shade anymore and we want to party before the winter ices everything over. You want to go to every single one, but your September/October weekends fill up so quickly that its just not possible.
What is it about fall that makes us want to party? I don’t think its just the cozy Autumn feels (although that certainly helps as soon as the nights start to get longer and the temperatures start to drop enough to make bonfires and layer sweaters.). I think its a deep ancestral instinct to give thanks this time of year, an artifact from generations and generations of agricultural societies that were genuinely fucking relieved every time their harvest was successful. This season was a time for pouring out their thanks, enjoying the bountiful fruits of their labor and anxiously petitioning their gods and spirits for protection in the winter to come. Its such a natural human feeling to tap into. And I think the spirit world that surround us enjoys this festive atmosphere as well.
So before I go into this meditation that I’ve prepared for the Equinox, I want to encourage you to find a festival or event this weekend where you can let your metaphysical hair down and celebrate that you’ve survived this far — you’re alive! There’s probably food in your pantry and fridge, medicinal “miracles” in your cabinet, clothes and shelter to keep you safe this winter, and more knowledge, entertainment, and social connection at your fingertips than your ancestors could have ever fathomed possible. Those are all things worth celebrating and I think it’s important to allow yourself to celebrate these simple existential necessities with your local community. This is especially important if you are a solitary practitioner like myself who doesn’t have a coven or group to observe the turning of the wheel. Get out there to a drum circle, or a farmers’ market or a concert….anywhere that people are gathered outside for the purpose of having fun and celebrating abundance should do. Ritualize it by calling in your spirit allies and ancestors…or don’t! Make an intention to experience gratitude or just let your energy mix and mingle with the crowd aimlessly, allowing yourself to go with the flow and lose yourself in the moment. Its your party, you can celebrate however you want to. It doesn’t have to be specifically witchy to be witchy, if you know what I mean. Use whatever event you are drawn to attend as an excuse to enjoy and appreciate the human experience…to commune with the community of teeming human life around you and dissolve into the cosmic soup of consciousness for a brief and beautiful moment of time.
Before you run off to hunt down a local events calendar, I’ve written a meditation and ritual for the solitary witch or magical practitioner to use to observe the Equinox and tap into the energy of the Earth’s movement around the Sun. You don’t need any specific tools for this ritual, but if something comes to mind that will help you enter sacred space, I encourage you to use it. For me, this time of year is embodied by apple-scented candles, sunflowers and Smokey quartz crystals, with offerings of mead and coffee for my ancestors. Your tradition may have different correspondences for the sun in Libra or the autumn equinox that you may want to incorporate or just get creative.
Let’s enter together into our sacred space.
Equinox Meditation
Take a few moments to focus on your breathing as we set aside this time and space as consecrated for our ritual. Breathe deeply and naturally, paying attention to each inward and outward breath as it naturally rises and falls.
In.
Out.
Feel your body relaxing from the top of your head to where you meet the ground as you breathe. In. Out. The relaxation pours over you and through you like a cool autumn breeze.
In. And out.
Imagine yourself a tree, standing tall in the middle of a sacred grove. Feel that you have long winding roots sinking down into the ground, searching. Say aloud or inwardly, “Roots reaching down into the sacred springs of the underworld.”
Now envision that this spring water beneath you begins to glow with bright golden light. Feel your roots soaking it in, pulling the light up into your body, all the way to the center of your heart where the light pulses and glows. Say aloud or inwardly, “Sacred waters flowing up into my inmost center.”
As your heart continues to glow, envision your leaf-covered branches reaching up into the sky, growing past the canopy of trees around your grove until your leaves are drenched with the golden life-giving light of the sun above. Say aloud or inwardly, “Branches stretching, reaching up to the Sun of Life”.
Now feel the rays of light flowing down through your branches until it meets the still glowing light at your heart’s center. Say aloud or inwardly, “Sacred sunlight pouring down into my inmost center.”
Now, standing tall and straight inside the center of your sacred grove, feel the light inside you expand beyond the boundaries of your body, filling the grove with purifying and healing light. Stay with this moment a while, letting the light illuminate and dissolve any physical or spiritual pains that come to your attention. It may help to envision the light energy now moving around the grove, like a gentle wind flowing between the trunks of the trees, swaying the branches and vibrating the leaves that shimmer in the light like silver coins.
After you’ve felt like the light has done its work, draw it back inside to your center, like the trees of autumn drawing chlorophyl down from their branches. Once the light is contained within the safe confines of your body, behind the sturdy barrier of your tree bark, you can relax again, slowly releasing the leaves of your branches. As they fall one by one, you feel yourself releasing any remaining tensions or worries or pains that have come to your mind.
As they fall away from your body to the ground, the autumn breeze picks them up again, carrying them away from your sacred grove.
Say aloud or inwardly:
“Sacred waters flowing up,
sacred sunlight pouring down,
sacred ground beneath my feet
and sacred breeze surrounds me.”
At this time, you may choose to call in the quarters, or you may wish to invite your ancestors, spirit allies or deities to join you here in the grove. Or you may also choose to sit in the stillness of the grove for a few moments before moving on, remaining present with the drawing of each breath.
Grievances and Gratitude Ritual
Once you have communed with the spirits or deities that you’ve invited into your grove, envision yourself shapeshifting from a tree into your own human form.
In the middle of the grove, a stone altar rises up from the ground. This long, flat slab is made from a mineral that holds importance to you. It is an altar you have built to bring your offerings of gratitude, and as you run your hand across the surface of the stone, you see that you have carved into its surface symbols which you recognize: symbols that have held great significance for you in your spiritual journey. These may be runes or sigils, names or images…but only you know what those symbols are for you.
Just as the sign of Libra brings balance, the Equinox also brings a balance between the day and the night time. On this altar we will place six items as offerings. Three of them will represent grievances, things in your life that you wish to change from your past, present and future. Three of the items will represent gratitude: things in your life that you are grateful for. By offering these to the divine, we will surrender to the balance of the forces of universe.
The first item appears in your hand. It can be any item, but it is a visual representation of the single thing you are most grateful for that happened in your past. Something that symbolizes your favorite memory. Take a moment to savor the memory. Feel the item in your hand…how does it feel in your fingertips? What feelings arise as you hold it close to you?
Now place this item on the left side of the stone altar. Say aloud or inwardly, “I offer this gift of thanks to the Divine, as gratitude for this cherished memory.”
Next, if you feel comfortable, allow yourself to remember a terrible memory from your past. As you think upon this moment, another item appears in your hand, something that represents the pain of this past trauma. Observe the feelings that arise as this memory plays in your head. Allow them to pass over you and through you. You may want to imagine infusing the item in your hand with these emotions.
Now place this second item on the stone altar, next to the first on the left side. Say aloud or inwardly, “ I offer this gift to the Divine, thankful for the lessons that I’ve learned from it, and I ask to be fully healed from the pain that it left in its wake”
Now, holding out your open hands, bring to mind something in your present life that you are grateful for: The thing, person, or activity that brings you the most joy in your day to day life. As you think on this thing, an item appears in your hands that represents this great gratitude you feel. Take a moment to observe your feelings as you hold this item in your hands, feeling its weight and texture against your palms and fingertips.
Place this item in the middle of the altar. Say aloud or inwardly, “I offer this gift of thanks to the Divine, in gratitude for the abundance and joy that it brings me.”
Once you’ve placed the item on the altar, open your hands and bring to mind the circumstance that is bothering you the most about your life right now. As you are considering how you would change this situation, an item appears in your hands which symbolizes this grievance you have. Observe the feelings that arise in you as you consider this thing that troubles you. Infuse the item in your hands with the energy of these feelings. You may notice that it gets heavier as it fills with your worries and pains over this situation.
Place this item in the center of the altar beside your gift of thanks. Feel the weight leave your hands as you place it there. Say aloud or inwardly, “I offer this gift to the Divine, knowing I have done all I can and praying that this situation will be changed in my favor.”
Open your hands once again, and bring to mind something in the future that you are hopeful about. As you visualize this hopeful circumstance coming to pass, an item appears in your hands that symbolizes all the hopes and dreams and excitement surrounding this possibility. Infuse the item with this hopefulness, seeing yourself in the future as this dream becomes a reality for you.
Place the item on the right side of the altar, surrendering it over to the powers that you have called into the circle. Say aloud or inwardly, “I offer this gift of thanks to the Divine, with gratitude for the hope it brings and the doors that will open to bring it to pass. I ask for blessing as I do my part to bring this hope into reality.”
Lastly, open your hands to receive the final offering. Allow your biggest worry about the future to come to mind and with it an item appears in your hands that represents this fear. Observe the feelings that arise when you consider this possible outcome, and place that anxiety into the item with your energy.
This time, as you place the item upon the altar beside the last one, visualize a reality where this worrisome situation is worked out in your favor. What will you need to do to make that happen? What fortuitous circumstances can you petition the Divine to ensure that things work out? Again, feel the weight of this anxiety leaving your hands and leaving your body as you place this final item on the stone altar.
Say aloud or inwardly, “I offer up this gift to the Divine, pouring out my deepest fears and asking for blessing in return. May Divine Light guide me on my path that I may walk away from fear and scarcity and instead, walk into a life of joy and abundance.”
Close this part of the ritual by saying aloud, “So Mote it be” and visualizing the 6 items you have left being accepted. Perhaps this means seeing your offerings fading away, being carried off by your ancestors, being covered by vines, or gobbled up by wildlife. Surrender them into the universal flow at the source of all things.
Close out the sacred space with the ritual of your choice. You may say “Merry Meet, Merry Part” to your spirits, or close the circle, or chant, sing a song, blow out your candle…whatever your tradition deems as appropriate to bring your ritual to a close and return to life feeling refreshed and renewed.
Mugwort & Meade 