Imperfectly Welcoming Autumn Equinox

Making space for messy rituals (and some poems)

From the poetical works of Henry W. Longfellow

Everyone’s autumn is a singular autumn, and each autumn is collectively experienced.

This is the complexity of our human experience. That we are singularly and collectively experiencing each day, each week, each month; each season.

For the majority of my autumns I have said to myself: “I need to do an equinox ritual.” Many autumn equinoxes passed without ritual, because when I imagined “ritual,” I imagined something impossible.

I imagined that my apartment was clean, my body well rested and exercised, my relationships without conflict, my candles and leaves and herbs all diligently collected.

For nearly all of my autumns and winters and springs I’ve done this: pictured how things needed to be done in order for me to do them.

Inadvertently I was imagining how I should be living my life, instead of living it.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
   Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day,…