The Autumn Equinox occurs at 9:31 am on Tuesday the 22nd, but it’s what happens in the aftermath that’s drawing my attention this week, because of its relationship to the threefold mystery of being human.
So what is this three-fold mystery? It is the mystery of the human being’s true nature as a being of body, of soul, and of spirit, or as a being of thinking, feeling, and willing, though each of these elements operates within us in at a different level of consciousness: you could say we are awake to our thought life; but when it comes to our life of feeling, we are as though in dreamlike awareness; and as for the will, the level of consciousness we exhibit there is akin to dreamless sleep.
But how is this connected to what’s happening in the sky this week? Just a few hours after the Equinox moment, when the Sun has slipped below the Celestial Equator, the waxing Moon, still at its crescent phase, will form an angular relationship with the planet Venus called a “trine.” Then the Moon will move on to create the same angle with the planet Mars, the very next day.
Now bear with me: the Moon is in the sign of Sagittarius while it’s making this gesture to Venus and to Mars, while Venus is in the sign of Leo, and Mars is in Aries. So the three of them ~ Moon, Venus, and Mars ~ occupy what are known as the “fire signs” of the zodiac.
So consider, at Equinox, it’s as though the point of balance is being struck by the Sun for the cycle of the year, and now we can look back to see where we’ve been, while this year, the fire element is being activated by Moon, Venus, and Mars, to stir us all to right resolve, in body, in soul, and in spirit, and in our thinking, feeling, and willing.