Time is not linear: it is spiralic. It circles around again and again to the same themes in different configurations, as we share this journey through the vastness of space with one another.
Astrology can help us to understand the nature of these spirals, and orient ourselves to cycles far deeper than those prescribed by the capitalist, reductive overculture which attempts to flatten and homogenize the inherently dynamic topography of time. Through it, we can integrate many models of reality and medicine, and open up to the blueprint of the energetic architecture of our lives.
Few points are more essential in our spiraling tumble than the celebration of the Autumnal Equinox, which this year falls on the 22nd of September. It is marked by ritual in nearly every culture worldwide, as it is one of the only things that truly applies to all people in equal measure: on that day, across the Earth, from pole to pole and meridian to antimeridian, we are all swaddled in precisely 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night.
The ancient druidic cultures of Europe marked this auspicious and portentous date with festival of Mabon, which I connect to through my father’s line; and the Jewish culture I inherit from my mother marks the days of awe and repentance in this annual return to equilibrium and preparation for the dark side of the year to come in the form of the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah on the new moon and Yom Kippur on the full. Similar and complementary rites are shared in just about every intact, earth-based culture worldwide. In the north, falling at the crux of summer and autumn, the themes are those of harvest, balance, and, crucially, forgiveness of the accumulated trespasses that have come with the year that began half a cycle ago, on the vernal equinox in March.
Astrologically, we are on the cusp of beauty, where Virgo gives way to Libra: the perfected maiden that ends summer gives way to the impartial scales of justice. This is the point, midway through the zodiac, where we move from archetypes focused on the personal ‘me’ to those concerned with the transpersonal ‘we’. Libra is the sign of collective care, the Fall of the Sun and the nocturnal home of Venus, where we band together under the banners of causes, movements, and tribes. Justice will be served if and as we serve justice.
This equinoctial point is this year marked by a sharp square to the waxing moon, who is on her own cusp as she makes the equally momentous from Sagittarius to Capricorn. This doubled change from mutable to cardinal, from subjective to objective, from one mode to another, will inflect this whole coming season. Ask yourself: where can I bring the light of justice, impartiality, and forgiveness into my life? How can I proceed to build the relationships, the projects, and the habits that will serve me well beyond the coming weeks and into the months and years and decades to come?
There is so much to forgive in this world, starting with the storms inside ourselves. Look to the spirals of the seasonal cycles and remember that all that goes down must come up, and all that rises will eventually fall. You can wash your own slate clean. Let it happen.
You and I are falling. You and I are free.
With apples and honey
Samu
Wishing you a blessed Equinox Samu