welcoming change: an autumn equinox ritual to reflect and recommit to our intentions
Autumn is a time of transformation in the environment.
And nature outside always affects the nature within us. As the trees go back into their roots, we are also afforded the opportunity to draw in, retreat, reflect, and reconnect.
In fact, many spiritual traditions use this season to reflect on behavior and choices made over the year. Practices and observances offer time to review any regrets, mistakes, or challenges made over the past year. This contemplation is meant to be a learning opportunity, so these habits, actions, or responses are not repeated and instead replaced with more artful, graceful, or just actions in the future.
The Autumn Equinox is a perfect time to create your own ritual for reflection, and recommit to more conscious, constructive, and compassionate intentions for the year to come.
Try this simple ritual on your own:
Take some time upon waking on the Equinox—Sunday, September 22—to relax and pause. Have an index card and a pen with you.
You can either do a few moments of conscious breathing or a full yoga and meditation practice. (If you join my new Autumn practice series or free meditations on Fridays, you can return to Equinox replay.)
After centering yourself, contemplate the question: What do you have gratitude for this year? What are the obvious and not-so-obvious blessings this year? Then write your answer on one side of the index card.
Pause again and take a few breaths and consider one or two of these questions, and write your thoughts on the other side of the Index Card:
What gifts have you received from a challenge this year? What did it help you learn? How did it expand or change you?
Is there a mistake you made or regret you have? What did you learn from it? How will your respond differently in a similar situation like that in the future?
How can you support yourself in cultivating a new habit? Is there an old habit that is no longer serving your best interest?
How can you create more balance in your life?
Then, burn the card: Fire is a symbol of purification and of the energy needed to create transformation.
At night (sunset is ideal, when night and day stand in the balance), go outside and burn your index card as an offering and an intention to remain open to change and transformation. Every year, I burn mine in the same copper urn. But you can burn it in any kind of a heatproof container or a terracotta saucer, like the one you would put under a potted plant. Put a layer of sand or dirt in the bottom to help absorb some of the heat.
Pause when it is done burning and enjoy the stillness of the night and the time you took to connect with yourself and your aspirations.
essential autumn practices
Join me for 8 weeks of practice that will support you in releasing stress, finding center, and building strength. Through weekly classes, you’ll recommit to your practice and foster steadiness throughout the frenetic energy of the season.
free meditation series for this election season
When we regulate our nervous system, we help set conditions neurologically and physiologically—in our mind and body—to create space for understanding, compassion, care, and empathy.
Join me for a weekly live and recorded practice so we can breath through this election series together.
Each practice will begin with a somatic tool to calm our nervous system, which may include a breathing exercise, movement, or imagery, and then we’ll shift into practicing a variation of the potent metta meditation “Just Like Me.”