You can feel it in the air. It’s getting cooler (well, almost) and thank goodness! Apparently, the desert has had its hottest summer on record, so we are more than ready to feel the cooler autumnal winds and temperatures. We have just passed the autumnal equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere (the vernal equinox in the Southern) and fall is officially on its way. The equinox happens twice each year where the daylight and darkness hours are the same. In the north, our days will become progressively shorter as we approach the shortest daylight hours of the year at the Winter Solstice. These shifts in season are times of transition which are demonstrated by the inherent cycle of Mother Nature.
As summer turns toward fall, it’s a perfect time to reconnect to the rhythm of the earth and get grounded. It’s a time where not only do the temperatures begin to drop, but humidity lessens and winds can increase. Trees respond by dropping the last of their sweet summer fruits ending the cycle of production and head into the cycle of dropping what they don’t need to enter hibernation–their leaves. And it’s not terribly obvious to us here in the desert. We know that fall is here because we no longer have triple-digit temperatures but we don’t have changes in the fall foliage as in other parts of the country. So, in some ways, it’s easy for us to miss the signals of change. Since we can get almost any fruit or vegetable at any time of the year, we miss the cue that some of them may not be in season locally. Without drastic shifts in the weather, we keep on doing what we’ve been doing.
It can get even more confusing living in a seasonal community. Just as the natural cycle is asking us to slow down and turn inward, people begin to return to the desert. Our roads, restaurants, and social calendars will begin to get busier, beckoning us to get out there and participate, another reason to pay attention to balancing out the increase in activity through mindfully making time to turn inward.
My thought this week is more of a seasonal reminder that we have passed the equinox and things are changing in our environment whether we notice it or not. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, we are approaching Halloween and Thanksgiving, times where tradition brings us to eating more root vegetables, squash, and pumpkins with pomegranates and persimmons coming into season. If we eat seasonally, we feel how it’s directing us toward the earth so it’s a perfect time to begin letting go and dropping our own “leaves”. This time of year is perfect for re-balancing our digestion, possibly through cleansing (Ayurvedic cleanses are specifically geared toward this time of year), to slow down and reconnect to our inner sacred time through ritual and meditation.
Yet, perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves this time of year is one of softness. Maybe for the next little while, we let go of being on the self-improvement train and practice loving ourselves just as we are…in this moment.
