I’ve never known anyone yet who doesn’t suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around… We’re all eight years old again and anything is possible. ~ Sue Grafton
Bob’s and I make a fall mecca to our local apple orchard this time of year. It is our way of honoring the turn of the Wheel of the year, our personal enactment of an ancient celebration of the second harvest of the season known as Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox.
The Equinox is that moment in time, one of only two in the year, when the nighttime and daytime are in equal balance, a balance that, the next day in the fall, tips towards darkness. From here, until the Vernal Equinox, the nighttime is longer than the daytime. Though we continue with our busy schedules, we can feel in our bones and deep in that place in our minds that holds the wisdom of centuries of ancestors, that the end of the year is approaching.
Our creative energies instinctively move from an outer-directed energy to a more inner-directed energy. In other words, the impulse, the desire is to spend less time doing and more time being.
Like squirrels gathering nuts, we compile that list or stack of books and magazines that need to be read, we re-commit to journaling and recording inner discoveries and challenges, and we carve out time for silence and solitude so we can hear those messages from the Muse. This is also the time to sleep more and therefore, dream more…
This past weekend, I attended a tarot workshop with tarot expert, writer and teacher, Rachel Pollack. As the class brainstormed ideas of what the Equinox implied—-balance, light and dark, harvest, the sign of Libra and its attendant energies around relationships and balance, suspension—-Rachel made notes and then came up with a series of questions for an Equinox tarot layout. Two of those questions were:
How do I enter the dark?
What do I discover?
The cards I turned over in answer to those questions were Temperance and The Fool.
Temperance is a perfect for Equinox because she represents harmony and balance. She also represents a blending of disparate or opposite elements that when brought together, create something new. As creatives then, this is a time to bring more balance into our creative lives, balance of inner and outer, active and receptive. Temperance suggests also that we enter the dark time of year for ideas, concepts, revelations, and emotions that need to be brought into the light as material for transformation and creation.
Temperance is, after all, also the Goddess Brighid, who is the Goddess of the Forge. What is placed into extreme heat for softening and shaping, is then plunged into cold water for hardening and strengthening. She’s a goddess of creativity.
So we enter the darkness with and for Creativity.
What does Temperance help me to discover? The Fool. That mindset of innocence where all things are possible. As creatives, that is our beginning place…anything is possible. The Fool, filled with potential, is guided by instinct, by her soul and sense of inner purpose. The Fool has a new optimism, feels a sense of confidence and courage. The Fool is the one who takes leaps of faith trusting in the ultimate good of life. And creativity is a constant beginning again—a new journey—and being willing to, again, take risks and leaps of faith.
As creatives, we need the quality of renewed and renewing optimism otherwise we would be unable to cope with rejection and failure. We need that willingness to risk and leap blindly otherwise we would never write or paint or create anything new.
So as you enter this season of autumn when you are harvesting and preparing for the winter’s cold and dark, ask yourself:
In my creative work, how do I enter this time of darkness?
How will I use the gifts it brings?
And will I be open to what I discover there?