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Writer's pictureShirley Riga

Autumnal Equinox Portal



My daily meditation practice is a journey of growth for me. I practice letting go every morning, allowing intuition, inspiration, spirit guide me with thoughts, words, impressions to read at 8:35 to begin our 15 minutes of silence. I have one rule and that is to be at my desk by 7:15 and be open. Some days I flow and others I resist and struggle and grunt out my writing.


Today is Autumnal Equinox, a marker of sorts for the onset of ingathering and recognizing this day of balance between the dark and the light. We are tipping into the period of “struggle between darkness and light, death and life. It occurs when the night and day will be equal, and the journey of the Sun to actually get there also signifies the journey of the Universe.”


We have had this experience of the dark night of the soul living the last six months in the throes of the pandemic. Life is changing as we know it. Children are adapting with remarkable ease, unlike me who remembers clearly how life used to be juxtaposed to how it is now. And yet I adapt.


We are all searching for ease in life, ease in our minds and souls. The purpose of the dark night of the soul is to purge that which no longer serves and discover what does serve our highest and best good. We are working towards the Spring Equinox which will bring in more light and illumine new beginnings, new growth and renewal.


This struggle gives me a headache. I realize this headache represents stuck energy in me, blocked by my self-judgment, expectations and inner critique. I’m in the audience again. I’m in a seat watching and waiting for my performance and not liking what I see. It’s importance to seek balance, have self-compassion and respect for this process.


I remember in my childhood figuring out the best way for me to be comfortable in my family life was to become aware of everything I’m doing, catch myself when I’m heading into a storm, correct it and keep watching. I became the vigilante of myself. I thought if I can be the scout and look ahead to be safe, I’ll do it. I parsed my attention between what I was experiencing and what’s coming down the pike.


I have experienced a lot of pain and loss in my life as so many others have. My learning is deepened by every experience. Pain and heartache open my heart to a deeper understanding of what life is all about. Finding my meaning and purpose has been in this breaking open.


Finding meaning and purpose is a deep want in every being on this earth. What do you want to be when you grow up is a question we are asked throughout life. So many of us don’t know until we are broken open and then examine what life means. Finding our inner truth is illuminating.


As a healer, I witness the heartache in others. I also witness the divinity that exists in every person. We are all waking up to our divinity by being broken open. We are each embodying this process no matter where we are in life because we are all one with the universe.

I learned years ago through my spiritual director training, that as life changes on Earth, humanity is deepening its relationship to sacred story. Each of us has a sacred story that represents who we are. Each of us at some point learns to define their sacred story through their breaking-open process to discover inner truth. As we discover our truth, we grow and redefine our values and deepen our relationship with a higher power.


A spiritual director is trained to be a guide in this process no matter what beliefs a seeker holds. We are deep listeners, ask guided questions, hold a place of stillness and safety for seekers to explore themselves and find their own path. We deserve to uncover our sacred story.


Inhale: I allow myself

Exhale: to make mistakes

Inhale: I allow myself

Exhale: to be imperfect

Inhale: I allow myself

Exhale: to be a learner in life

Inhale: I forgive myself

Exhale: And for now, I am free

Bring to mind someone you’ve had a challenge with recently.

Inhale: I allow you

Exhale: to make mistakes

Inhale: I allow you

Exhale: to be imperfect

Inhale: I allow you

Exhale: to be a learner in life

Inhale: I forgive you

Exhale: And for now, we are free


Participants’ Reflections:

  • I always appreciate your permission to be human. I am in the throws of a painfully ambivalent decision. I’ve been invited to spend time with friends and I am not sure this is what I want to do, to be inside a house with other people. The ambivalence around Covid and I don’t want to isolate myself because we are coming into the dark time of the year. The whole decision-making process of taking care of myself emotionally and physically. The path is not clear, and it is hard for me when the path is not clear.

  • Thanks for the reminder of the equinox. The universe knows how to stay in balance, and if we could just learn from the universe. I enjoyed the self-compassion series of couplets. After the third one, I started to do what you were saying. It was so cleansing and is worth memorizing. Yesterday, I had to have a medical procedure that required me to sit with my eyes closed for 10 minutes. Someone came out and said, “Glad to see you.” I began thinking “glad to see you” and “glad to hear you.” Instead of getting anxious about the procedure, I made myself go through several phrases of gratitude which eased my anxiety. Thank you for the couplets.

  • Thank you for the reading. I identify with all those not clear on their path to make decisions. What I heard this morning was the idea that the writer was giving themselves forgiveness, something they needed, and then going forth to do it for another because they have it embedded in themselves. My meditation this morning focused on the enduring power of love. And my higher power is that love that connects us. Beginning with the autumnal equinox, days get shorter and there is much beauty in autumn. There’s still light in this world. There’s still a beating heart in this world. Our job is to stay centered. Richard Rohr talks about staying centered at this time, how important it is for us, because at the essence of our core, we can endure through this.

  • I like the invitation to self-care. Towards the end of my meditation, I was just breathing in: I forgive myself, I forgive myself. That’s where I need to be. My brain doesn’t have to figure out what I’m forgiving.

  • Those couplets resonated with. The person I was having difficulty with was me. I made a decision to do something last night out of expectation, and I gave up things that really mattered to me in order to do it. I think it was a total bust. I know the people who I would have seen were going through a hard time over the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I wasn’t there with them where I should have been. I’m beating myself up for it. I did the should. Not where my heart was. I’m having a hard time with me as a result.

  • We learn from every experience. It’s in community we can lean on those who hold us when we are feeling pain and heartache. We are all holding you. It’s okay. We all learn from our ‘shoulds’ and at the same time it’s hard. You’re feeling your abandonment and it is okay because that is how we learn not to abandon ourselves the next time.

  • With the autumn equinox, we are working towards light in the Spring. We are such light seekers. I myself don’t like to be cold. I don’t like the darkness, but there is something to be said for the darker days. It’s a time of rest. it’s a time for reflection. Covid is like that as well. Besides the negative aspects, there are positive aspects -- the gift of time to reflect and look within. The darkness does bring with it rest. I sleep better, I rejuvenate. I hunker down. I reflect.

  • Thank you for the meditation. As you were reading, I misheard you and thought you said, “finding my medium purpose.” I thought, yes, I want to be that conduit and that connection. During the meditation, with the equinox and the darkness—with all the abuse I had as a child, I dampened my own femininity. In order to have a balance, I felt my femininity and could feel it rising. It’s like humility, the more you try to get it, the less you have it. So many times I have tried to enhance my own femininity, but it’s not in the trying. It’s in the being letting it rise.

  • Your intention to be a conduit, your intention to be more feminine—that is the key. It’s the letting go instead of the expectation of wanting to be in control. That is what makes it rise.

  • When I went into the meditation, I was sitting on a golden throne. It reminded me of a guided meditation where I sat on my golden throne, like ascending into the essence of who we really are, and being the vessel. I am the vessel. We are all the vessel, and if we are the essence of who we are, so much comes through us and goes back out to other people.

  • According to the book Hands of Light by author/healer Barbara Brennan, that’s the Ketheric Template or Causal Body of the spiritual plane.

  • While we may count the days, we cannot count the ways that this community has been a blessing to all of us. I want to thank you all.

  • The reflections we share are teaching so many people. People are reading and relating and learning and opening.

  • We are all with each other. I heard in the couplets to think of someone we have difficulty with. I thought of the woman above me in this apartment building who was very cold to me when I first moved in. At one point, I decided to try to make friends with her. We are very different. Last night, I bumped into her and she apologized for giving me such a hard time when I moved in. She said I was so nice and that I listen to her. It was what I was going for, to connect in some

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