fall equinox – Karen's New York Love Affair

The wheel turns to fall again

Before I leave for California I need to make formal recognition that the wheel of the year has turned once more… another fall is here.

This is the time when the child of summer grows into the self-reflective adolescent. Where the child is pure emotion, the adolescent is more hesitant to act freely, more concerned with what other people might think. And, concerned about the effects of our actions on others.

For me, this is a maturing of steeping the red energy of summer in the black cauldron of self-awareness. What effect does my anger have on others? Does it serve me? Does it really serve the truth of who I am? Lately friendships have been falling away like sequins off a wedding dress. Does being true to who I am mean letting go of these friendships because people don’t appreciate me the way I am? Or am I being loyal to an old self-image that no longer serves me? As I look back over my life, most friendships and romantic relationships have ended with an angry scene. Although it’s true that sometimes we need that angry energy to separate, and sometimes anger is definitely the appropriate response to being treated badly, neglected, or abused, the maturing part of me is beginning to question the way I express the anger.

Sure, it’s fun to let it rip… It can feel very satisfying, especially when someone has behaved in ways that I felt hurt by. I’m thinking of one event in particular that occurred this summer… Sometimes the energy of expressing anger can reveal the hidden truth in a situation. And yet it makes most people uncomfortable, and the loss of a friendship is a high price to pay. My friend Dorrie was the only person I’ve ever met who seemed to love me fully when I was angry; it didn’t phase her. What a gift to have that acceptance.

So this is the exploration I am taking with me into the Owens Valley desert region in Eastern California. What inner exploration are you doing this fall?

Here are some entries from the past about the energies of the West, which is the fall quadrant of the wheel:

The mystery of the West

Falling into the West

The West

Bears a-huffing and a-climbing

The mystery of the bear poo was solved on Tuesday! I was coming back from a run, along the road by the outhouses, heading toward the barn to get some mouse bait. As the clearing by the barn came into view, I saw four shapes on the grass. It took a few moments for my brain to process what they were. I’d just seen some cows outside my gate, so at first my mind compared the shapes to cows and said No, Not Cows. Then I thought of sheep, because the shape was kind of sheep-like and my mind was still thinking domesticated animals. The biggest creature was a light brown, with a black snout, and looked kind of sheep-like! Then finally I realized it was a mama bear with three black cubs! Wow! I said Wow a couple times, and by then the four of them ran up the hill into the woods.

It must have been a repeat of what my friend Munro saw near here earlier in the summer, because I could hear and see some of the cubs scrabbling up a tree. The mama bear made a lot of huffing noises, telling me to clear out! I watched for a few more seconds, then got the bait from the barn. I peeked out the barn window, trying to see the bears up the hill, but I could only see trees. When I went back outside into the clearing where I’d first seen the bears, I could still hear mama bear huffing at me. So I retreated back to the house. I could even hear her huffing from the back deck outside my bedroom while I was doing my post-run yoga, and now and then the sound of a cub climbing around in the tree as dusk came down the hill.

It was such a wonderful surprise, and I’ve been looking forward to writing and sharing it with you, dear blog readers. The next day I went over there and I found a lot of disturbed earth under the tree I think the cubs went up. I’d seen one climb up to the very top of a tall fir (maybe 60 feet tall?). I couldn’t see any scratch marks, probably because there were so many branches that they could use for climbing. But I did find a big pile of bear poo in front of the barn, as well as the several piles I’d seen before on the road! So this solved the mystery of the big poo and the little poo. Clearly there was a big mama bear and some little baby bears pooping on my road!

As I’ve mentioned before, bears are associated with the west part of the wheel, and a sign of the fall. The fall equinox is next Tuesday, so this visit might be a precursor to the coming of fall. But it was also the 9th anniversary of the death of my father, and I think that he might have sent these bears as a treat for me. I just completed the final installation of my cell phone power booster the day before, and received four wonderful phone calls this day too. What a magical day. A lot of love and support from the universe, from family, friends, bears, and hot guys! Thanks, Dad. May your spirit be at peace.

Falling into the West

Tomorrow is the first day of October. The fall equinox has passed. The wheel has definitely turned from summer to fall, from South to West. The four shields model of working with nature and psyche has much to teach us, and enticing doorways of exploration to offer through the West.

To place the West in the context of a wheel, picture that the North is at the top of the wheel. Then moving clockwise, East is at the right of the wheel. Continuing clockwise, South is at the bottom of the wheel, and the West is at the left side.

Each direction has different qualities associated with it. Are these qualities inherent to the direction? I would say sometimes they are not, though often they seem to be. For example, in the northern hemisphere, the North is ultimately the direction of the North Pole, which is white with ice and snow. At least it will be for a while longer, I hope. So to associate white with the North makes sense. But in the southern hemisphere, it would make more sense to associate white with the South, because in the South is the icy South Pole and Antarctica.

The East is associated with the colour yellow, which makes sense when you consider the sun rising in the East. Similarly, the West is associated with the colour black, in part because the sun sinks below the horizon in the West, causing darkness to fall. The South is associated with the colour red, and there are reasons for this as well, which I will discuss another day.

The interesting thing about the colours is that peoples from all over the world have devised systems similar to the four shields, including the medicine wheel of the North American plains peoples and the wheel cosmology of the Dagara people of Africa, and they choose the primary colours of the earth and sky—red, black or blue, white, yellow, green—although they may place the colours in different directions of the wheel.

Returning to the question of whether the directions have qualities inherent in them, I have come to view the four shields and other models as ways of organizing and working with aspects of reality, including the outer world and our inner nature. The four shields can be used as a tool for contemplation and understanding, just as the I ching, runes, tarot cards, and many other tools can help us look at an issue in our life and see something new.

Over the next few postings I will be exploring more qualities of the West with you. I invite you to join in an exploration of the West.