How do we celebrate the balance of night and day when everything is out of balance, off-kilter, disturbed?
The answer is that we celebrate anyway, to bring about the balance in ourselves.
We grieve for floods, fires, species loss, climate change, habitat destruction, and we celebrate the beauty of nature to remind ourselves that life is worth living, habitats must be saved, the balance must be restored.
The Anishinaabe people have a prophecy: the Seven Fires Prophecy:
It is this time that the light skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. One road will be green and lush, and very inviting. The other road will be black and charred, and walking it will cut their feet. In the prophecy, the people decide to take neither road, but instead to turn back, to remember and reclaim the wisdom of those who came before them. If they choose the right road, then the Seventh Fire will light the Eighth and final Fire, an eternal fire of peace, love, brotherhood and sisterhood. If the light skinned race makes the wrong choice of the roads, then the destruction which they brought with them in coming to this country will come back at them and cause much suffering and death to all the Earth’s people.
Wikipedia, The Seven Fires Prophecy
It’s quite clear that we are quite far advanced along the road of destruction, but it’s not too late to turn back and seek the wisdom of our ancestors.
Many people are returning to older ways of life and seeking the wisdom of their ancestors.
Perhaps we could make this Autumn Equinox a time to look back and choose the Good Life (mino-bimaadiziwin). The Anishinaabe offer the teachings of the Seven Grandfathers. We should respectfully learn about their life-ways but not appropriate them.
In Wicca, we have the eight Wiccan virtues: honour and humility, mirth and reverence, power and compassion, strength and beauty. Each of these virtues is balanced with the one it’s paired with.
Many ancient cultures practiced the cultivation of virtues as a way to live a life in harmony with nature.
As well as being the time when fruit is harvested and stored in preparation for the lean and hungry days of winter, Autumn Equinox is a time of balance: between summer and winter, day and night, inner and outer, Olympus and Hades, extroversion and introspection, and all other seeming opposites that complement each other in life.
Previous Autumn posts
Autumn foods (2021)
Dowsing for Divinity 