Welcome to the Equinox. Later today the sun will, for just a moment, hover over Earth’s equator, a moment signifying both balance and change. In both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, day and night will be equal in length but moving in opposite directions.
Here on these 6 acres, night slowly lengthens as Winter emerges on the long horizon.
It’s a point of balance heavy with power. It occupies space known for both stillness and rapid change.
Too often it’s easy to isolate the meaning of balance only to stasis. Like a highwire walker, motionless, arms outstretched.
Or, as the moment came to me as a haiku* a few years ago:
Autumnal Equinox
a hawk stands still
on razor wire
In writing these words I was first focused on the stillness of balance. In retrospect, what most reaches me now is how the stillness pulses with echoes of motion.
Balance isn’t flatness. Or monotony. Or lack.
It’s everything coming together and taking a breath. It’s the past and the future fused in the now. It’s what makes life alive.
I think about our garden. It’s lavishly alive. Some plants so alive it may be out of balance! The tomatoes, for example, are growing wonderfully wild!
But the garden together is busy, social, and abundant. And these bowls of tomatoes and cucumbers and pumpkins and pears did not come about through stasis. But they did come about through balance.
The right amount of water and the right amount of light. A combination of nutrients, neither in excess nor dearth, conspiring to create savory delights. And just think about the community that collaborated to bring this all to life!
Bees and moths. Earthworms and birds. The sun and the rain. The respite of night. What role, I wonder, did the moon play here? Bacteria and the little worlds that live within them. Our resident garden toad patrolling for slugs. The wind. The warmth. The firm foundation of soil.
And the humans too. Not just Trystin and Margaret and me, but our friends who help build and populate these garden beds. And the fence to protect them.
What an example of the powerful abundance of balance!
When we come together, fusing our skills and energy and expertise to make something grow, abundance is the natural result.
Thank you all for how you have done that, and continue to do so, on these 6 acres. And in the many ways you live your lives to bring who are you to the “allness” we all are.
For me, these 6 acres and the Wheel of the Year are a daily source of inspiration. (See the end of this message for a seasonal photo gallery.) As I walked the trails this morning, the abundance was obvious. The rosehips, the lichen, the rabbits, the myriad species too varied to count. And, of course, the birdsong.
A varied thrush called out from among the firs today, a sure sign of autumn days. They even dress in orange and black. And this must be the nuthatches’ favorite time of year – they are always singing!
And I wonder how the maples feel about losing their leaves. Is it a relief? A respite from a summer of diligent photosynthesis? A time for rest? Do they not only require, but actually savor, the balance rolled out by the Wheel of the Year?
That’s my goal, as I stand here between the fullness of both summer and winter. As I step across the equator of the seasonal sphere. Savor all seasons.
All the light that brought us here, all the night that lies ahead, be readily and gratefully embraced by it all. And give it all a good squeeze back.
As I wrote only a few days ago, this turn of the Wheel - this moment of balance - invites us to feel the space between breaths:
blossom to blossom
somehow the hummingbird
deepens the stillness
Thank you, patrons, family, and friends, for the abundance you bring to our lives and this land. May the blessings of the season be abundantly yours,
🌲Zach & Trystin
*composed in 2023
published in Frog Pond, Autumn 2024
