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by Payton Hoegh
It came as something of a surprise this week to see the sun sinking behind the hills in the late afternoon instead of deep into the evening. Driving down the freeway, the sight prompted a light smile as I rolled the windows down to appreciate the cooling night air. After weeks of extreme heat, I could smell autumn.
As the fall equinox approaches and the world settles into this new season, I need its reminders of equanimity. I need its invitation to slowing, abscission, and balance.
This fall, I’m starting a new journey. As part of the ordination process for my spiritual tradition, I’ve been asked to spend the next few months as a volunteer hospital chaplain. In preparation, the last few weeks of summer have found me far from my element on shaded trails under blue skies. Instead, I’ve been in artificially chilled meeting rooms under fluorescent lights discussing pain and death, care and comfort, the sacred duty of walking alongside the sick and suffering in body and spirit.
The continual refrains here have highlighted the beauty and honor of this role and its inevitable toll for those who offer this care. On the night I paused to appreciate the first traces of autumn, I was coming to terms with both as I processed the experience of offering prayer and presence at the bedside of a woman coming to the end of her life.
Still holding the weight and sacrament of that moment, dusk’s gentle reminder of the coming equinox was somehow steadying. Reflecting on day and night approaching balance brought me to my own sense of center. Taking time to feel the wind on my face and breathe in air touched with autumn’s early crispness was calming, slowing my still-racing heart and anxious thoughts. Golden scrub on the canyon hills, dark pops of seed heads clear even from the freeway, whispered sacred rites of resilience. The sycamore trees on the roadside, leaves yellowing at the ends preparing for the season’s impending turn, offered a blessed reminder that all we hold must also be let go.
In moments like this, I appreciate that I am guided by more than just human mentors. Sometimes I need wilder wisdom to recognize truth.
I hope that the balance I see in nature, in events like the equinox and autumnal patterns weaving life and death, endeavor and rest, can help me find the equanimity I will need for this new season.
I hope it can do the same for you, wherever you are in your journey.
Be transformed this fall during The Spiritual Wisdom of Trees.
Join us for 6-weeks of guidance, contemplation, and community reflection on the lessons these ancient elders can share for resilient, connected living.
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Photo Credits:
Header photo by Samantha Fortney on Unsplash
Fall photo by József Szabó on Unsplash
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