AFTER THE EQUINOX
by contemplativeinquiry
After the equinox comes a deepening of autumn. Light, colour, texture – my sense of the world is different. Images of this moment in the year shape my sense of time as well as of place. I savour the turning of the wheel. All time is transitional, yet every time has its own uniqueness.
Contemplating images like this is for me a way of sustaining what modern Druids sometimes call a re-enchantment with and of the world. Simple attention to the living world is a renewing experience, and protects the heart from what can seem like the half-life of a Wasteland culture. Opening to a living cosmos, I plead guilty, with pride, to the charge of Romanticism.
It is after 9 a.m. on Sunday 26 September, Locally I enjoy orange as a colour of ripening, rich and shiny with life, as the season of bearing fruit moves on.
There are trees whose leaves have already turned, but will stay on their branches for awhile, giving these woods a more mixed, autumnal appearance.
But there is still a preponderance of green, some of it surprisingly fresh. Here it provides a canopy of green light and shade.
The season is also asserting a downward pull, towards the earth and dissolution – a process, however, still in its early stages. The broken fence seems almost to be sharing this, beginning a return to the land.
Then there is the undergrowth, with its mix of living and dead wood, living and dead leaves, and the soil that holds them. The evergreen leaves are defiantly vivid. Taking pictures, I celebrate the time of year.
Contemplative Inquiry 
Lovely photos.
Thanks Nimue.
I liked this quotation from Norwegian Chloë Rain in her blog on The Spiritual Significance of Autumn Equinox in Our Modern Lives:
“Indigenous cultures recognized earth-based wisdom and understood that the four focal points of the year: the Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, and Autumn Equinox; illuminated stages of an inner spiritual journey – a spiritual cycle that the individual takes within themselves.”
A very important cycle in my view, Ron. We Druids use an 8-fold wheel of the year, combining the solstices, equinoxes and Celtic fire festivals (Imbolc at the beginning of May, Beltane at the beginning of May, Lughnasadh at the beginning of August and Samhain at the beginning of November. Many of these dates have an historic importance in other cultures too.