balance

So today is the Autumn Equinox. One of the eight major Wiccan holidays; I didn't celebrate the last one, Lammas, mainly because I was busy pulling up roots and taking flying leaps of faith, but also because I don't know what it means, to me, today, here and now, to someone who doesn't practice traditional forms of Wicca, someone for whom the usual mythology and symbolism doesn't resonate. And until I figure out what it means, I won't just go through the movements.

But today is the equinox, or Mabon as some call it, and I've always liked this one. It marks the beginning of fall, a point on which the year turns to the future, a moment of transition. Fall is my favorite season, partly because of my birthday in October, mostly because I love those liminal moments in time, between. I love the atmosphere of fall.

So it's wierd, trying to maintain my spiritual practice when the ground of that spirituality has changed so completely. I've always lived in temperate climates; the desert is an alien world. It doesn't feel like fall to me, it feels like endless summer. It's fascinating and discomforting. So I've been putting off marking this holiday, put off my usual habits and practices, because I feel displaced. And I'm busy, I've got to go shopping and get this and that and the other, I need to study, I need to practice, I need to clean my room, I want to watch this movie and read that book etc etc ad nauseum.

But, I ran into Dianne Sylvan's blog today, and I remembered that the Equinox is about balance. It's a pause, a breath. And as a Libra I do nothing but balance, everything in my life and the world I live in, much to my own annoyance. Balance is hard. Harmony is work. But I know the price of not doing that work. So I guess today I'll cancel my plans, put on my hiking boots and hit the trail behind my house, the one that leads up into the red mountains, and introduce myself, say hello, here I am. Just let myself be for a moment.