It’s hard to believe September has arrived. Autumn equinox is just around the corner. This is the gateway to our intuitive power, when our inner wisdom is called to rise through the archetypes of the Queen and Healer. We find ourselves at a collective crossroads with an opportunity to open to greater self-love as we explore the balance between our inner and outer worlds.

Aligning with the Energy of Autumn Equinox

The change in seasons begins as the Sun’s power wanes, leaves fall from the trees and the days become ever shorter. At the equinox on September 22nd, day and night will be at equal lengths. This is a call from nature to come back to the wisdom of our body, to begin preparations for nesting and rebirthing through the Winter season. A highly charged moment to pause and celebrate our outer expression of the spring and summer seasons. To acknowledge our personal harvest of new friendships, family, produce, ideas and achievements of the year. We balance this with our inner world by welcoming our intuitive nature to expand. Creating ceremony to energise our inner medicine woman and ignite our sovereignty can show us the way to self-actualisation through the darker half of the year.

A healthy spiritual practice includes a genuine relationship with nature and real living world. It awakens our senses to the greater forces at work beneath the surface of our busy lives. The Earth sustains us and shows us how to enhance our wellbeing by balancing our inner and outer worlds. What does Mother Earth have to say to us right now that will help us experience more balance, peace and abundance in our own life? Have we been rushing around all summer enjoying ourselves and forgotten to attend to our finances or health? Have we accumulated so many things that it’s time for good clear out? Have we ignored issues in our relationships and need to address those now?

How does Autumn Equinox align with the Womb and Moon phases?

We align this time of year in the northern hemisphere with the midpoint in our Inner Autumn season (the premenstruum) and the waning half moon in the lunar phase. The light energy transitions down into the roots of the dark womb, where our true power lies in the unconscious realm. This isn’t a place to fear or avoid, as we’re often taught. The source of our inner knowing lies within these darker layers of our soul. As we prepare to meet our shadows, staying open to the medicine, even though we may want to close, will create a firm foundation for our lives to evolve. If we choose to embrace these darker aspects of ourselves, we deepen onto our spiritual path by releasing the past and healing any wounds that have surfaced as we open more to love.

In these times of great transition, we’re collectively being called by our ancestors to reignite the sacred ways that sustain our relationship with the natural world. Autumn is the perfect season to ignite your sovereignty as a Queen and Medicine Woman in your own life.

Ceremony in nature is a very important gateway to empowering this relationship. Just being in nature in the physical body isn’t always enough if we want to rise and lead the way to a brighter future. If we’re walking around in nature, running stories in our mind or complaining about what’s wrong in our life, we’re not getting the full benefit of being there. Without this vital connection to elemental energies, we can lose our own vitality and health. If you feel tired all the time and you’re working in artificial light and computers, make it a personal practice to go out into nature and connect with the vital forces of the natural world.

This is why cyclical living is such a powerful practice. It brings us into a state of presence and consciousness with the natural world. It empowers us by connecting the outer cycle of seasons to the inner cycles in our body through menstruation. With strong feminine energies leading the way to a better world, the more we do to strengthen this connection, the more we support the collective. So within, so without.

Crafting your own ceremony

To ignite your Inner Queen and Healer with this Autumn Equinox with a ceremony, here are some ideas to inspire your journey:

• Go out into nature intending to walk in presence. Let the mind chatter go and drop into your sensory body. Bring awareness to your breath, gentle movement, or a barefoot walk and notice how your feet kiss the ground. Touch the fading green leaves, look for nuts, berries and mushrooms that nature offers us now. Say thank you in your own way.
• Make an earth art mandala of things you find on your walk. Lay your hands on the ground and let our great planet Earth know you are listening.
• Write a gratitude list for all you’ve experienced and received through the outer journey. Reflect on the expansion of the spring and summer seasons to cultivate the love, compassion and joy you’ve been gifted. This will bring abundance and fan the fire that will nourish you through the darker half of the cycle.
• Book an Autumn Photoshoot in nature. With me as your guide we’ll dive deeply into your Inner Autumn magic and create a collection of stunning portraits that capture your essence as a powerful Queen and Medicine Woman.
• As nature collectively gathers the seeds from the summer growth and incubates with them until the spring, ask what you can give back to the earth to balance the scales of life and promote healing for the planet.
• Acknowledge the co-existence of the seen and unseen worlds by focusing your attention on balancing opposites of the masculine and feminine elements in your life. Ask your high self for guidance on how to experience these inner and outer worlds as a whole to bring you inner strength. Is there a practice, activity, or approach you can adopt to create this balance in your life now?
• What can you cultivate in your own life to create fertile soil through this darker half of the cycle? An acorn will become a great oak tree if it’s given the right balance of conditions.

The most potent time to access the Equinox energies may be further enhanced if you time the ceremony with your premenstrual week or the waning moon. Choose a day that feels right for you to slow down and enter this space over the coming weeks.

I wish you a peaceful and potent transition into the Autumnal season. Remember that all endings are new beginnings. Let’s welcome in the magic and reclaim our sovereign hearts!

With so much love,

Samjhana x