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, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
                   But never knew I this;
                   Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

I’ve always wanted to be “that kind of person.”

I realized I was a perfectionist when I was sitting in my therapist’s office six or seven years ago, listing out what needed to change in my life. Mid-list, my therapist stopped me and asked, “Have you ever considered that you might be a perfectionist?”

I imagined a femme-coded woman, thin and statuesque, wearing a pencil skirt, a blouse, tights, and black high heels. Her hair was in a bun. She was carrying a briefcase. This image came to me in an instant, and in the same instant I blurted: “But I’m not good enough to be a perfectionist!”

And there it was.

In the years since, I’ve learned a lot about perfectionism.

Like, how woman and femmes are labeled perfectionists but men somehow escape the label.

I’ve also learned about the type of perfectionist I am (messy and Parisian) and how to leverage my perfectionism for good. (Much of this was learned through reading Katherine Morgan Schafler’s The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control).

More recently I’ve been noticing how my need to do things a certain way, which can also be attributed to my ADHD, inhibits me from living my life fully. I’m adventurous and spontaneous but I have a much harder time incorporating routine and ritual in my life.

As a writer, this just doesn’t work! I don’t know many writers who work well without some sort of routine or container for a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly practice. Whatever that container is. There’s a myth that good writers are inspired. All the good writers I know are inspired sometimes, but when they’re not inspired? They run off the fumes of their work ethic and writing routine (with breaks, of course).

A Northern Autumn, Birch Drive

EAGLE POEM by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

This autumn equinox I am not letting perfectionism get in the way of celebrating the shift in seasons and connecting with the earth.

Now, more than ever, I (we) need to connect with the seasonal shifts and feel our intrinsic earthly connection.

In her newsletter Mystery Cult, Amanda Yates Garcia (one of my favorite witch-educators) shares some easy things we can do in celebration of the equinox, when the length of daylight is nearly equal to that of night and we enter a new season. For those in the Northern Hemisphere this is a significant shift into less daylight and cooler temperatures (which I very much welcome here in Florida).

I’ll be writing an alignment list. This is a practice I’ve found helpful for myself, especially because I can easily become dysregulated. I’m essentially working four jobs right now: I’m a writer revising my book, a professor teaching writing at the college level, a PhD candidate in coursework, and a writer writing this newsletter.

This evening I’ll be sending out some PDFs of alignment list templates and printouts to my paying subscribers. If you’d like to receive those, make sure you’re on the list!

I’m also a human being with limited energy, which means I must touch in with myself often in order to understand what’s feeling in alignment with my morals and values, where my energy is perhaps being wasted (for instance, are my relationships reciprocal? Am I spending too much time online?), and what’s feeling regenerative.

Frequently we’re told to frame these things in negative terms, but I’ve been practicing attending to where my life is feeling good. Right now, it feels really good to let myself sleep in until 6:30am on weekdays, rather than forcing myself to get up at 5:30am and being more sleep-deprived. It also feels good to go for walks, especially now that the days aren’t so hot and humid.

Making space for transitions is working for me, too. I learned this in my yoga nidra training but sometimes forget to do it. Giving myself an extra two minutes to breath, process a writing, teaching, reading, yoga, or walking session, and then move into my next activity has really helped me stay grounded.

So, I’ll be making that list today. And I’m going to spend some time in my tiny garden, planting a few things.

What about you? Can you make just a tiny bit of space today, for yourself? Even if it’s five minutes in your front yard, or two minutes standing in the bathroom with your hand on your chest, checking in and breathing. Or maybe right now, taking a deep breath and reminding yourself: I’m here. I’m good enough just as I am.

Let me know how you’re making some space, what you’re reading, or what you’re writing.