A Theme for the Autumnal Equinox: Balancing the Spiritual and Mundane

Moon

As with most extraordinary and wonderful things in my life, the idea for writing monthly essays for On the Wings of Dreams came about in a very ordinary and casual way. During a morning coffee chat on the phone, I mentioned to Laura that I would like to begin writing nonfiction articles again. Her response was, why not put them on the lil’ shop’s website? Hmmmm. Good idea!

So here we are, the first in a series (hopefully!) of conversational essays on all things spiritual, with a dash of the mundane thrown in for good measure. It’s the mundane that adds the spice to the spiritual life, you know. Which brings us to our first topic…

A Theme for the Autumnal Equinox: Balancing the Spiritual and Mundane

Sunday, September 23 marks this year’s Fall Equinox. According to Webster’s, an equinox is “the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth’s equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth.” Just think, all over the Earth, day and night were equal for one day. The whole Yin and Yang perfectly (or approximately) balanced for everyone. Nice thought, especially the “balanced for everyone” part.

Traditionally, the Autumnal Equinox has been celebrated as a time of harvest. People ate a lot of bread and drank a lot of mead, and generally had a grand old party before the dark and cold of winter set in. At least, this was true in the northern hemisphere, but we were talking about all over the earth, weren’t we?

All over the Earth, things are drastically out of balance. Look around and we see too much spiritual, or too much mundane, or not enough compassion or not enough food. Yup, the swinging scales of Justice are gyrating all over the place. But what can we do? It’s all so big and out of our control. Often we: a) get depressed b) pretend it’s not happening c) become angry and critical d) forget about it and watch television. None of which make a positive impact on our beleaguered world. So what are the good choices and what do they have to do with balancing the spiritual and mundane?

All too often we get caught up in thinking that if something is spiritual, that means it’s an awesome, monumental and incredible thing/place/activity that we mere mortals can never comprehend. Seas part, fatal diseases are healed – that sort of thing. And while those miraculous things can, in fact, be spiritual when they happen, they are not the overwhelming majority of spiritual things that happen every day in each of our lives. You know what I’m talking about – someone holds a door open or smiles as you pay for your lunch. That’s good stuff. It also really, really helps bring the world into balance. The more we approach each thing we do with love and attention, the more the whole planet wakes up! It’s a contagion, but of the good kind.

bee spirit

So maybe we can’t control the wars and the greed and the suffering on a global scale – at least not yet! But we can invest our attention and kindness on each and everything thing we do. Truthfully, cleaning the bathtub can be a completely uplifting spiritual experience when approached with the right attitude. The more of us living our lives with joyful hearts, the less suffering all of us experience. And this is not a 1+ 1 = 2 type of equation. This is an e = mc2 type of equation, the kind that can’t be measured in usual terms. In other words, the difference we can make is not just one of six billion (and counting) human beings on the earth. We are such vital and important parts of humanity that we never know where our smallest efforts are going to effect the big picture.
To quote Mohandas Gandhi:

What you do is of little significance, but it is very important that you do it.

Why? Because we never know just which small, insignificant thing that one of us does with a compassionate heart, will be the thing that saves the world. Or – at least starts the world-saving ball rolling.
Peace-
Tee

sage

p.s. I’d love to hear from you. Email me at teespirit@gmail.com