The Spring Equinox

This Wednesday morning, 23 September, at 8:05 Perth time, the sun crosses the equator.

For that one moment, day and night are the same length everywhere on Earth.

That moment is the equinox. The word means equal night.

Down here it is the Spring Equinox. From Wednesday our days are longer than our nights, and they keep stretching all the way to the December solstice.

Up north it is the Autumn Equinox, and they are heading the other way, into their dark half of the year.

Same instant, opposite doors.

Three months ago I wrote to you about the Winter Solstice. The still point. The pause at the bottom of the breath.

The equinox is the other kind of moment.

Nothing stands still on Wednesday. The sun is moving faster through our sky right now than at any other time of the year, and the light is gaining about two minutes a day.

The solstice was the pause. This is the crossing.

I want you to notice something about balance while the sky is showing it to us.

The sun sits in perfect balance for a single instant. Then it has moved on.

Balance is a moment you pass through.

Nobody lives there.

I meet a lot of people who are worn out from chasing balance as if it were a destination. Work and family. Giving and receiving. Doing and resting.

They want to get the scales perfectly level and then hold them there forever.

The sky has been showing us for a very long time that it does not work like that.

You cross the middle, you lean one way for a while, you notice, and you come back and cross it again.

The lean is the design.

The coming back is the practice.

In my own life the stretches I remember as balanced were never the ones where nothing moved. They were the ones where I caught myself leaning too far and turned around.

At the same instant on Wednesday the sun enters Libra, the sign of the scales. The old astrologers were not being cute with that.

Libra season is the season of weighing, of the other person, of relationship, of seeing both sides before you decide. For the next month the sky asks you to do exactly that.

In the seasons of the Noongar people, the custodians of this country, Djilba is giving way to Kambarang, the season of the wildflowers, when the whole country comes into colour.

And in the Chinese solar calendar the same day carries their Autumn Equinox, Qiufen.

Same crossing, half a world apart, one side into the light and one side out of it.

So here is the practice for this week.

Name one place in your life where you have been leaning too far one way for too long. Between now and Wednesday morning take one step back toward the middle.

Just one.

You do not have to fix the whole thing. You only have to turn around.

On Wednesday I will write to you again as the sun makes the crossing, and I would love to hear what you found.

What is the one place in your life that has tipped too far one way?

There is more teaching like this in The Library, and every daily post is in Daily Posts. If you would like guidance on your own path, see Readings.