Today there is balance.  The earth on its axis tilts in such a way, that the sun caresses it evenly. Our days are equal to our nights.  It’s difficult not to feel the harmony, the new, yet familiar slant of the sun in the sky.  It’s been in this position before, and it’ll be there again on roughly the same day next year.  It’s a comfort to be aware of it.  It’s a spiritual practice to celebrate it this changing of the sun, to own that our universe is set up to cycle for billions of years.

Grappling with the scope of all that is beyond its limited powers of reason, the human imagination has for millennia, conjured all kinds of gods, larger than life figures who bring forth the harvest, give gifts of fire, rain, ice, and seed.  They appear as punishing mothers and fathers and lustful and avenging lovers, clever connivers and cheats. Whatever their passions, humans have always been at their mercy.  And at the end of our days, our minds do not deceive us. 

In just the last few hundred years, science has revealed that the universe truly is of endless magnitude, and modern inhabitants of earth, if they allow themselves, feel even tinier than the ancients did juxtaposed against the Titans upholding the firmament. 

Despite the hard ground living creatures walk upon, molten rock flows at the planet’s core.  A veil of gases wraps about earth, protecting its surface from the ravages of the fireball two planets away that will one day explode and destroy all that it now animates.

With imagination, ingenuity, and plain hard work, humans have risen above the plight of despair.   They’ve made themselves the gods while striving for relief from fear of obliteration at the hands of the elements.  The human race has accomplished much.  For better and worse, it has transformed the face of the earth. 

In the midst of striving to keep body and soul together, it’s easy to forget about the tilt of the axis and what makes day turn to night.  It’s easy to forget the forces that propel this magic blue, green, and white marble through the universe at blinding speed.  It’s easy to forget the delicate balance of these reliable cycles, and it seems impossible that any ant of a human being could affect such workings.  But together, collectively….It’s easy to miss the tearing and soiling of the thin veil of protection.

At the autumnal equinox, it’s time to pause and feel the slow drift into darkness, to sense the lack of mercy at day’s end, year’s end, life’s end. 

It’s also time for hope and harvest and homecoming.  Every plant, tree, blade of grass, burrowing creature, migratory bird and predator, and every human in his or her bones knows that the balance is always shifting.  There will be more light than dark again.  And in the meantime, let the darkness lengthen our dreams and the hearth fires spark new stories beyond the limits of imagination.

-Radiance Writer

September 22, 2022

Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash