Autumn Equinox | 2026

On the Autumn Equinox, the earth pauses in her long turning. For one breath, light and dark hold equal sway. Day and night stretch their hands toward one another across the sky. It is a delicate poise, a fleeting still point, a threshold moment when the world feels both complete and trembling on the cusp of change.

This time is sacred. A liminal space between light and dark believed to open pathways to the unseen. A holy balance where myth, memory, and the cycles of the earth converge.

Just as the earth aligns with celestial balance, so too we are invited to align with the soul’s inner axis, to listen between the noise of seasons, and to contemplate what must be gathered and what must be surrendered. We are asked to honor all that was, and to make peace with what is unresolved in our hearts. To harvest with gratitude, and relinquish with grace.

The Daoists teach that the yin and yang are not fixed halves, but flowing currents, a perpetual interplay of light and dark, each containing the seed of its opposite. One foot stands in the realm of living/being/light and the other foot in the realm of death/non-being/darkness while we always remain connected to the other in innate wholeness.

The Autumn Equinox reminds us of our ecological belonging in an interconnected world, where who we are becoming and everything that we have gained or worked toward is placed on the altar of life for all kin and kind. The creative life force in nature is turning her attention to the roots, deepening into the earth and the underworld, where she will rest deeply in the womb of darkness.

The Medicine of Darkness

Our culture largely names this shift to the dark half of the year as “negative.” Modernity privileges expansion - growth, progress, optimization, more, more, more.

The medicine of descent is forgotten in the pursuit of optimization, comfort, and ease. But descending into the depths is important because we begin to work with the parts of ourselves that inevitably get pushed outside of our awareness: grief, shame, anger, fear, desire, creativity, vulnerability, and aspects of ourselves we’ve learned are unacceptable. It invites us into slowing down, shedding, reflecting, and paying attention to what lives beneath the surface in the unconscious.

It is our work to decolonize this idea as a negative thing, and embrace it as an opportunity of deep transformation. We lose touch with nature's wisdom when we perceive time through the lens of linearity. Many of us have been taught to perceive life through the lens of an evolutionary path-of-measurable-progress. Yet, nature is not linear nor is it progressive. Nature teaches us time moves in a spiral, and every beginning must eventually meet its end, and every ending contains the seeds of a new beginning.

Rituals for Autumn Equinox

Your altar is a portal of spiritual communion; a doorway to your own sacred heart. An Altar can provide a place for grounding your spiritual practice and hold your prayers and intentions.

Altar tending is a powerful practice, especially if you have a designated area in your home that you can tend over the course of the year to honor seasonal and personal thresholds.

Start simply. There is no need to "buy" altar items. Everything we need is within us and can also be found around us.

Here are some examples:

Flowers, herbs, corn husks, grasses, pine cones, other nature provisions that are abundant where you live. Candles. Pictures. Tchotchkes and trinkets that hold symbolic meaning or value. Symbols of harvest and abundance, as well as talismans to walk with you into the dark.

If you are taking something from nature to place on your altar, name your intention and ask permission.

Journal Prompts for Reflection

Invitation to light a candle, write in your journal:
What are you collecting this season?
Where does abundance lie in your life?
What is your harvest basket full of?
What stories do you tell yourself about worth and value around receiving?

What is ready to be let go of?
What is already on its way out?
What roots need tending?
What stories do you tell yourself about darkness, letting go, or change?