Only twice a year is the light of day perfectly in balance with the dark of night. On every other day, either light or darkness predominates.
In the midst of the whirl of life, the biannual equinox provides us a moment of rest, stillness, and equipoise.
One maxim of Waldorf early childhood education is: “the environment is the curriculum.”
This environment is the classroom, carefully curated to include only natural materials such as wool and wood, beeswax modeling clay selected for its ability to give scent and warmth back to small hands, soft pastel colors on the walls and curtains, and hard edges rounded on papers and chalkboards to mimic the organic shapes of the natural environment.
Children are educated primarily through their senses, not their minds, and nature, beauty, and symmetry in their surroundings soothe, ground, and ennoble without so much as a word.
From what I have observed, the environment is the curriculum for us grownups as well.
In our dawning age of climate chaos, we are indeed beginning to pay attention to our wordless teacher, the environment. Indigenous peoples worldwide and throughout history have studied the ways of nature and strived to emulate her wisdom in their pursuit of balance with the natural world, with each other, and within the self.
We live in and are informed by social structures and economic systems predicated upon imbalance. It is this hard-edged, individualistic, and unjust classroom that has inwardly formed us. Built on an uneven foundation, our institutions and psyches are now in the process of collapse because what is untrue cannot stand the test of time.
The equinox provides us with a reminder of what balance looks and feels like in the classroom of life. Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 22, is an opportunity to reset and root into the solid ground of the true, real, and enduring.
Let us spend some unhurried time outside tomorrow, ideally at sunrise or sunset, to remember what our short time on this earth is about and to recommit ourselves to that holy purpose.
And let us journey tomorrow to honor the dance of Grandfather Sun and Grandmother Earth and to seek their guidance on this day of balanced light and new life.
RSVP
If you are interested in attending Gaia Shamanism’s free online journey circle this Wednesday, September 22, from 4-6 pm PDT email me at anna “at” gaiashamanism “dot” com.
All skill levels are welcome.