We are deeply unbalanced, off-kilter, ready to fall. Take a look at any headlines and no matter your politics or lack thereof, you will likely conclude our entire world is teetering on the edge of a blade, at risk of falling into cataclysmic disorder. This coming Sunday however contains a heavenly convergence that is worthy of your reflection and may offer some solace; it is both a new moon and the autumn equinox. This is significant not because of some spurious astrology but rather the real, tangible ways your world will change and some innate symbolism that natural world offers.
On the equinox your days and your nights will be more or less equal. Twelve hours of light. Twelve hours of darkness. This is good. In such unstable times, it is well that we are not also enduring the long dark-cold or losing ourselves in the bacchanalian joy of the two extremes, the solstices. This equinox is marked too by the invitation to start over offered by the new moon. Something about new moons always feels like an opportunity to begin again. When you take these two celestial events in tandem—the balance of the equinox and the opportunity of the new moon—it feels as though you are being invited by the natural world to step forward and reclaim some semblance of stability, to make a fresh start and regain your footing, to try again.
I walked with my now toddling daughter (13 months old) around our meadow this evening wondering what to tell you about this equinox, about how to become balanced again in such an unbalanced world. Would I speak of the adaptability of trees changing? The succession of flowers again? Migratory patterns? As I hemmed and hawed, contemplated and reflected there in the meadow, my little girl pointed to a small sunflower. I carried her to it, placed her down, and continued my ruminating. She tugged at the flower, realized she could not pull it from its root, and crawled to my lap. She did not fuss as I picked her up and carried her in my arms to the forest in search of more insight. It was there however, that I realized she had already given us everything we needed to know to keep our balance in this unbalanced world.
The Flower
As we walked around the field, my daughter spied a small sunflower from some distance and pointed to it, directing me to bring her there. When I placed her on the ground, she was not distracted by a butterfly nearby nor the approaching cat; she walked to the flower confidently and began to pull.
She knew what she wanted and she went for it.
As we are considering how to reclaim our balance in these uncertain days of grim headlines and constant alarm, it is wise to be like the very young child who sees what she wants and strides to it with an unwavering focus. Identify your goal and do not lose sight of it, ask those who support you to help you arrive to your desired location, approach, and seize what you desire.
The Familiar
When my daughter decided pulling the flower was in vain, she did not fuss. She realized uprooting it was beyond her and she crawled toward me and settled into my lap. One might expect an easy lesson here in the importance of asking for help, but that did not occur. My daughter—though very young—knows how to ask for things including assistance. She did not do that with her flower. Instead, realizing it was beyond her, that its roots were stuck fast, that it willed itself to remain planted, she returned to me and therein lies her second lesson for you:
When we fail, it is good to retreat to familiar ground.
Remember though (and this is very important) that she did not crawl to me crying or wailing, distraught at her defeat. She accepted what was and returned to what she knew. As the world becomes increasingly complex and unstable, things just won’t work sometimes. As my friend and fellow father Joe Norman at Applied Complexity Science likes to remind me, “complex systems are fragile systems.” This will only become increasingly true as our world becomes increasingly complex and many institutions, efforts, and logistical networks will break down. Failure abounds.
This sounds scary but it is fine as long as you have the familiar to which you may return.
Perhaps it is not a physical place like your father’s lap. Perhaps it is your faith or ethos or code of morality. Perhaps it is a person. Perhaps it is a book or tradition or biome. Whatever the case may be, if you have a touchstone, something to moor yourself to when the sea of life becomes too choppy, you will be able to regain your footing and try again.
Trust
After my daughter crawled into my lap and I stood and started walking away from her desired flower, she did not whine. We walked from the flower meadow to the edge of the forest. There, we spotted a flock of wild turkeys emerge in the far corner of the field to the south. The woodline curves there like the gentle arc of the sun over the western ridge this time of year, providing multiple opportunities for escape for a cunning wild bird. A fine and safe boreal cove in which to sun and rest. We stood there, listening to the scratchy call of a hen to her flock, watching the wild turkeys sun themselves in the curving corner of the field. The September sun was warm and there were no biting insects to distract us from watching the funny turkeys slowly waddle back into the forest, from reflecting on safety, from witnessing a moment of tranquility.
Although my daughter did not obtain what she initially sought, she was rewarded with something else. She trusted where I was bringing her and gained something good.
I will not tell you in what to put your trust. That is too personal and only for you to decide. There will be times when you feel as though nothing is going right however, when the imbalance has turned to a free fall. In these moments, trust in what you have sown before this time: the relationships you have fostered, the insurances you have set, the skills you have honed, all the good you have wrought. Perhaps this looks like reaching out to a friend, in leaning into your faith, in cashing in on some social program you have spent your life paying into. Whatever the case may be, you likely have more of a safety net that you realize, something solid in which you can trust.
As the equinox and new moon converge this Sunday, attempt to focus your mind less on grand systems or headlines and more on that small sunflower in the field, the little girl tugging at its rooted stalk, returning to her father’s lap, and later watching wild turkeys at ease in their woodland cove.
Focus on what these anecdotes symbolize.
Pursuing what you desire with clarity, returning to the familiar when you cannot uproot what will not yield, trusting that the path still offers good things—these three movements are enough to steady us when the world feels increasingly unbalanced.
You cannot control the whole earth teetering on a knife’s edge. You can walk toward the flower, rest again in the familiar when it will not come loose, and trust the hand that carries you toward what you do not yet see.
You can reclaim your balance.
