On September 22, we reach the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, the point in our journey around the Sun that marks the astronomical beginning of autumn. For those of us in the Pacific Northwest, the shift is already beginning to make itself known. The evenings arrive a little earlier, mornings feel different, the air begins to cool, and nature starts its slow movement inward.
There is something about this transition that I have always found meaningful. We tend to celebrate the light. We seek clarity, awakening, expansion, answers, breakthroughs, signs, synchronicities, and those beautiful moments when everything suddenly makes sense. Yet nature does not remain in the light. It does not bloom endlessly. It does not produce without resting. It does not cling to summer because summer feels abundant and alive. Eventually, the leaves fall, the landscape quiets, and the darkness comes earlier. Nothing has gone wrong. Perhaps there is something in that for us.
We Were Never Meant to Live in Constant Light
There can be a subtle expectation within spiritual work that growth should always feel like expansion. We meditate hoping to go deeper. We look for signs that we are on the right path. We seek connection, healing, understanding, and greater awareness. When those things arrive, it is easy to recognize them as progress.
The quieter seasons can be harder to understand. Sometimes there are periods when the signs become less obvious. Meditation feels ordinary. The next direction is not clear. Something that once felt aligned begins to fall away, yet whatever is supposed to replace it has not arrived. We can interpret those moments as being stuck, disconnected, or somehow moving backward.
Nature reminds us that growth has rhythms. There are seasons when energy moves outward and seasons when it draws inward. There are times for becoming and times for simply being. There are moments when the road is brightly illuminated and others when we can only see the few feet immediately in front of us.
We do not need the entire path revealed in order to continue walking it. Sometimes the next step is enough.
The equinox is especially beautiful to me because of what it symbolizes. The word equinox comes from Latin roots referring to equal night, reflecting the near balance of daylight and darkness surrounding this point in the year. Astronomically, it occurs when the Sun crosses the celestial equator. Symbolically, we can view it as a threshold between light and darkness.
Not because light is good and darkness is bad. Not because one must defeat the other. Both belong.
We contain certainty and mystery. Strength and vulnerability. Joy and grief. Knowing and questioning. We have parts of ourselves we freely show the world and other parts we are still learning how to understand. Wholeness does not require us to eliminate one side of ourselves. It asks us to make room for the whole landscape.
This is one reason I think periods of uncertainty can be so powerful. When everything is illuminated, we naturally rely on what we can see. When visibility decreases, we begin developing another way of navigating. We listen differently. We notice differently. We learn to trust ourselves differently.
Learning to See in the Dark
Most of us have been taught to trust what we can prove, predict, label, measure, or explain. Intuition rarely arrives that neatly. Sometimes intuition is a quiet thought that does not feel like your usual thinking. It can be a sensation in your body, an image during meditation, a persistent nudge, a dream you cannot stop thinking about, an unexpected synchronicity, or simply a feeling of knowing something without understanding exactly how you know it.
The mind often wants more information. Show me the whole picture. Tell me where this is going. Give me proof. Let me know I am making the right choice.
Sometimes that information simply is not available yet.
I think part of developing a deeper relationship with our own consciousness is learning to become more comfortable in that space. This does not mean blindly believing every thought, sensation, or feeling that passes through us. It means becoming curious about what arises when we stop demanding immediate certainty.
There is a different kind of sight that begins developing there. It is the ability to sit with a question before rushing toward an answer. It is noticing what feels expansive or constricting within us. It is recognizing patterns and synchronicities without needing to immediately force them into meaning. It is learning how to listen.
Perhaps this is one of autumn’s invitations. As the external light begins to diminish, what becomes easier to hear within?
There is also something beautifully symbolic about darkness itself. Darkness is not empty. Seeds germinate beneath the soil. Roots grow where we cannot see them. Our bodies perform much of their repair while we sleep. So much life and transformation happens outside of our direct observation.
I return to this idea often in consciousness work. We are accustomed to measuring change by what we can consciously perceive, yet there may be much more happening beneath the surface. Sometimes an experience shifts something within us long before we have words for it. Sometimes healing happens layer by layer. Sometimes an answer arrives months after we first asked the question. Sometimes we eventually recognize that a period we thought was stagnant was actually preparing us for what came next.
Not everything needs to be visible to be real. Not everything needs to be understood immediately to have value.
Before You Release, Harvest
Autumn is often associated with letting go, and understandably so. The falling leaves give us a beautiful visual metaphor for release. Still, I think we sometimes rush too quickly to the question, What do I need to let go of? There is another question worth asking first. What have I grown?
Think about who you were at the beginning of this year. What have you experienced since then? What challenged you? What surprised you? What did you learn about yourself? Where did you become braver? What boundary did you finally understand you needed? What belief changed? What new curiosity appeared?
Not every harvest looks like a major accomplishment. Sometimes the harvest is awareness. Sometimes it is finally recognizing a pattern that has been repeating for years. Sometimes it is realizing that something you desperately wanted is not actually right for you. Sometimes it is learning to trust yourself. Sometimes it is simply discovering that you are not the same person you were when the season began.
Before deciding what needs to fall away, take a moment to notice what grew.
Then comes release. Trees do not appear to question whether dropping their leaves means they have failed. A leaf had a purpose. It emerged, grew, absorbed sunlight, nourished the tree, and contributed to the life of the whole organism. Then its season ended.
I think there are things in our lives like that too. An identity can serve us for years and then become too small. A belief can once protect us and later restrict us. A relationship can teach us something important and then come to a natural end. A dream can lead us somewhere valuable even if we eventually realize it is no longer our dream.
Growth does not always mean adding something new. Sometimes growth is recognizing when something has completed its purpose. Release feels different when we look at it this way. Instead of asking only, What do I need to get rid of? perhaps we can ask, What has served its purpose and is now ready to be released?
Holding Both
The equinox can be a reminder that we do not have to choose between light and darkness. We can be spiritual and deeply human. We can be grateful and still want change. We can trust life and still have questions. We can feel connected one day and uncertain the next. We can experience joy while carrying grief. We can be healing and still encounter old wounds. We can know ourselves deeply and continue discovering new layers.
Maybe balance is not a perfectly centered state we eventually achieve. Maybe balance is our willingness to move with what life is asking of us now. Sometimes that means expanding outward. Sometimes it means turning inward. Sometimes it means acting, and sometimes it means listening. Sometimes it means standing at the edge of what we know and taking one more step without requiring the entire map laid out before us.
As we move toward the autumnal equinox, give yourself a little quiet space to consider three questions:
What have I grown?
Look back over the past several months and notice what has developed within you, not only what you have accomplished externally.
What has completed its season?
Is there a belief, expectation, identity, habit, relationship with yourself, or way of moving through the world that no longer feels like who you are becoming?
What am I willing to trust even though I cannot yet see where it is leading?
You do not have to force the answers. Sit with the questions. Write about them. Meditate with them. Take them on a walk through the woods. Ask them before you fall asleep and notice what comes through your dreams. Allow the response to arrive in whatever way it chooses.
The autumn equinox is not asking us to find perfect balance. It reminds us that light and darkness have always existed together, and both have something to teach us. The path will not always be illuminated. There will be seasons when you know exactly where you are going and seasons when you do not. There will be times of extraordinary expansion and times when your greatest work seems to be happening somewhere beneath the surface.
Keep listening. Keep noticing. Keep becoming. Maybe that is the gift of the equinox season: learning that we can keep moving forward even when we cannot yet see what comes next.
