Equinox and Balance

Who doesn’t crave life balance? Enough to do and not too much, productivity and leisure, human touch and peaceful solitude? Able to walk the tightrope without falling off to either side? The equal balance of night and day at the autumn equinox conjures up this dream we pursue but rarely quite achieve.

A younger woman once asked me, with reference to work and family and volunteerism and the rest, if it’s possible to have it all. My response: Yes, but not all at the same time.

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:
     The garden is growing dark.
     The stars are shining.
     Let us, then, bow our heads to the earth's rhythms
     And acknowledge the wisdom of change.

Perhaps the lesson of the equinox is not to stay upright on the tightrope but to find ease with falling off. The time of equal day and night is very brief. Most days are longer or shorter. Joy and grief are warp and woof of life’s tapestry. “Let us, then, bow our heads to the earth’s rhythms and acknowledge the wisdom of change.”

Image: Five dancing women, 1338-1410, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.