Reflecting on the Autumn Equinox: A Season for Letting Go and Showing Up
This year's Autumn Equinox gathering was a little less scripted than some of the others we've shared together.
We ate, we talked, we wandered, we made something together. The sunlight disappeared in what felt like record time, and the fire took considerably more effort to get going than usual (thanks to me for forgetting the fire starters). But once it finally caught, which was due to a serious team effort, there was something lovely about settling around it. The warmth kept us there, talking and sharing for hours as the evening gradually became darker around us.
I always like to begin these gatherings by giving ourselves a moment to arrive. To put down, for a little while, whatever else we've brought with us and notice where we are, who we're with, and what season we're standing in.
The Autumn Equinox feels like a particularly good time to do that.
We're standing at a threshold between summer and autumn. The warmth hasn't completely disappeared, but the light is changing. The evenings are drawing in, the mornings feel different, leaves are beginning to turn and fall, and fruits are ripening. The landscape is slowly moving away from the abundance of summer and towards the quieter months. An Equinox gives us this lovely moment of balance, when day and night are almost equal, before the darkness gradually begins to take up more space. It seemed like a good opportunity to ask ourselves where we are, too.
Summer can be a season of outward movement. Things grow, bloom and expand. We spend more time outside, gather experiences, start projects, make things, nurture relationships and perhaps discover things about ourselves along the way. So before we move into another season, we paused to consider what this one had given us. What have we been growing? What have we been nurturing? What have we learned? What has come into our lives this year that wasn't there when the year began?
But nature doesn't only show us how to grow. It also shows us how to let go.
The trees don't hold onto their leaves because they're afraid of what will happen without them. They release them when their season has come to an end. And perhaps there are things in our own lives that have reached that point too. Something we've outgrown. Something we've been carrying because it once mattered. A habit, an expectation, an old version of ourselves, or simply something that has been taking more energy than it needs to. Letting go doesn't necessarily mean that something was wrong. Sometimes it simply means that its season has changed.
This year, I also wanted to introduce the group to the Cailleach, a figure from Gaelic tradition who I think offers an interesting companion for this time of year. She appears in different forms across Irish and Scottish folklore, so there isn't one single version of her story, but she is often portrayed as an ancient and powerful woman associated with the landscape, mountains, storms and the coming of winter.
In some traditions, she is the force that shapes the winter landscape, carrying stones, forming mountains and bringing the cold weather. In others, she is connected with the transition between seasons.
I like the idea of her not as something to be wary of, but as a reminder that the world has another rhythm besides growth.
After a year of following the Wheel of the Year together, we've seen that rhythm beginning to reveal itself. There is a time when the landscape becomes quieter. A time when things retreat beneath the surface. A time when old growth falls away and the earth rests.
We're living in a culture that is very good at encouraging us to keep going. To improve ourselves, be productive, stay busy and constantly strive for more. But nature doesn't do that. Trees don't produce flowers all year because they feel they ought to be doing more. The earth isn't failing because everything has become quieter. Winter isn't an interruption to the natural cycle. It is part of it.
Perhaps autumn gives us permission to consider whether there are things we could stop forcing. Things we could allow to rest, or even allow to finish. But there was another part of this gathering that felt just as important to me, and that was the reminder that we don't experience these seasons alone. So much of what we're told is good for us is centred around ourselves as individuals: wellbeing, self-care, personal growth, spiritual practice. And all of those things have their place. We do need time to turn inward and pay attention to ourselves.
But none of us really thrives in isolation.
Human beings have always gathered around food and fires. We've shared knowledge, cared for one another, made things together, celebrated together and helped each other through difficult seasons. There is something about gathering in this way that reminds me that wellbeing isn't only something we do to ourselves. Sometimes it comes from being part of something. From being welcomed. From contributing. From sharing what we have with other people. So as we move towards the colder months, when our instinct might be to withdraw a little, perhaps there are two questions worth carrying with us:
What do I need?
And:
How do I want to participate?
Where can I show up? What can I contribute? What do I want to be intentional about prioritising in the months ahead?
It doesn't have to be grand. We don't have to fix everything that's happening in the wider world before we're allowed to make a difference right where we are. Whatever is happening out there, we can still look around and notice what's happening right here. We can choose to participate rather than simply observe. And perhaps that's one of the things I value most about these gatherings.
None of us has to arrive with everything figured out. We're simply choosing to spend a few hours together, paying attention to the season, to ourselves, to each other and to the place we're in. But we show up with intention to be participants, and that is what creates community.
And then, of course, we ate.
There was a delicious shared meal of all sorts of salads, fresh bread and a vegan cheesecake topped with homemade mulberry jam. We talked about our experiences of the year, what had been growing in our lives, what had been inspiring us and the many different ways we'd been choosing to show up this year. We all have such varied and interesting projects, hobbies and interests so it’s lovely hearing each others updates on experiences and lessons learned.
Later, we took a quiet, meditative walk and gathered small natural objects from the beach and surrounding landscape. We brought them back and attached them to a piece of wood we'd found, creating a little collective work of art which we hung from a tree for others to discover and enjoy as they pass through the area over the coming months.
There's something I really love about making art together. It doesn't need to be perfect, or particularly meaningful in isolation. It becomes meaningful because we made it together, in this particular place, at this particular moment in time.
Eventually, we put the fire out, packed everything away and headed home to our respective beds. I can't speak for everyone else, but I love the nights when I go home with the scent of campfire still in my hair, a full belly and a nourishing. An evening well spent.
If this sounds like the kind of gathering you’d like to be a part of, definitely read more about our seasonal gatherings you can find reflections I post after each of them on the blog and details for upcoming gatherings here.
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