A Welcome Puddle on the Morning Path
We wake into the Equinox: autumnal in the north, spring in the south. For three days the entire planet, and all of us with it, is in perfect balance and harmony. Day and night are of equal length in both hemispheres, even as each moves toward a different season. Here in the north, this is where we begin the trek toward winter, the outbreath of Earth herself. These marker moments are in our DNA. Since the beginning of humankind we rose and fell with the Sun's journey, and it has only been a handful of generations since we stopped. We even have a gland in the middle of the brain so sensitive to light that our bodies remember what our minds have forgotten. Dr. Michael Lennox – Daily Astro Alert September 23, 2026
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. Gary Snyder (quoted in Pam Montgomery’s Co-Creating with Nature: Healing the Wound of Separation)
A gentle rain fell briefly yesterday evening and later I woke in the night to the glorious sound of more rain on the roof. An Equinox blessing for this parched ground! I wonder if the rain will move the needle downward from the current ‘extreme drought’ and ‘exceptional drought’ designations here in the San Luis Valley and the southern Sangre de Cristo mountains.
As I sit early, pen in hand, I feel the balance of this Equinox more deeply than I did yesterday at the precise moment of summer’s ending, autumn’s beginning here in the northern hemisphere. I reflect on the reminder that our ancestors understood the equinoxes and solstices as multi-day events. Although their lives were much more aligned with planetary rhythms, indeed with Life itself, we each have this knowing deep within.
I often experience it as a longing for my knowing to be more present, more accessible in my life. The woods out back, the tree and rock beings, Mountain likely chuckle at my human lack of satisfaction and of wanting more. Perhaps though they and the unseen ones above and below ground are simply joyful that I recognize them as kindred. Kin who I want to know and experience more deeply.
As I felt the dampness and looked toward the shrouded mountains on my walk this morning, I thought of how many people would label this overcast day ‘dreary’. I recalled a line from a musician friend’s song back in my days in Lubbock, Texas: we pray for the rain, then we curse getting wet, and I noticed how joyful my heart felt as rain began to fall and a flock of pinion jays landed on the ground nearby, sheltering under the brush.
I wanted to sing in the rain, yet its sound kissing the Earth was so beautiful that I kept my song in my heart. I listened. I watched. I slowed my pace even as more drops fell, blessed by each reminding me of just how blessed I am. Let the rain fall!
As the world out there becomes more chaotic and uncertain may we remember our home and call upon the balance of this equinox time to remind us of where our true home is and of the harmony and balance that lives and breathes there, accessible to one and to all.
Shrouded Mountains — Will There Be Snow When They Break?