Find a comfortable place to be.
A place where you can just soften and relax.
A place where for these next few moments there is nowhere else you need to be.
And then close your eyes if that feels good.
And place one hand on your heart.
And one hand on your womb's place.
Take a long,
Slow breath in.
And then a nice,
Long,
Slow breath out.
Just simple.
For a few rounds,
Breathing in.
And breathing out.
And feel yourself arriving here.
In your body.
In your breath.
In this moment.
We are standing.
At a sacred juncture.
In the yogic tradition.
There's a beautiful word.
Sandhya.
Sandhya is a threshold.
A meeting place.
The sacred space between what has been and what is becoming.
Dawn is a Sandhya.
Dusk is a sundeer.
The space between one breath and the next can be a sandhya.
And the equinox offers us another kind of Sandhya.
The sacred juncture between one season.
And another.
A moment.
To pause.
To listen.
To remember.
To honor what has been.
And to consciously turn towards what is becoming.
The equinox brings us into relationship with light and darkness.
For a brief moment,
Day and night come towards equilibrium.
Light and dark.
Giving and receiving.
Movement and stillness,
Doing and being.
Strength and softness.
Holding on and letting go.
Masculine and feminine.
Tantra reminds us that we don't have to choose one or the other.
We are invited to become spacious enough to hold the whole of life.
The light and the shadow.
The joy and the grief.
The expansion and the contraction.
The beginnings and the endings.
Balance does not mean that everything in our lives is perfectly equal.
Balance is alive.
We listen.
I feel.
We adjust.
We return.
Again and again.
We return to our center.
So breathe here.
In this moment.
Feel the center within you.
And ask yourself.
Where in my life am I being invited?
Back into balance.
Perhaps there is somewhere you have been giving and giving,
And you are ready to receive.
Perhaps there has been much doing and your soul is asking for being.
Perhaps you have been moving quickly and your body is asking you to slow down.
Perhaps there is something you have been holding tightly.
That is ready to soften.
So simply notice.
No need to change anything yet.
Just listen.
This is the sacred pause.
And now.
.
.
You can turn gently.
Toward the season that has just been.
Imagine yourself looking back over these past few months.
See the woman you were at the beginning of this season.
See everything she has walked through.
Everything she has learned.
Everything she has loved.
Everything she has created.
Everything that has challenged her.
Everything that has grown within her.
Before asking what needs to be released,
Allow yourself to honor.
The Harvest.
And ask yourself.
What has ripened in me?
What have I learned?
How have I grown?
What have I created?
What am I proud of?
What love have I given?
What love have I received?
What prayers have already been answered.
That I may have forgotten to celebrate.
Take a moment to receive your own life,
To receive the harvest You have lived through another season.
You have become someone you had not yet met at the beginning of it.
Let yourself feel gratitude.
And perhaps say quietly.
Thank you.
Thank you for what has come.
Thank you for what has grown.
Thank you for what I have learned.
Thank you for what and who has loved me.
Thank you for what has brought me here.
And now from this place of gratitude asks,
What has completed its season?
What am I ready to lay down?
What no longer needs to travel with me?
What can I lovingly return to the earth?
Imagine placing whatever arises into the hands of the divine into the sacred earth.
To be composted.
Simply recognize.
That its season is complete and release it all with love.
And then breathe.
At this Equinox.
The sun moves into Libra.
Carrying the archetypal qualities of balance,
Harmony,
Beauty,
Relationships.
And reciprocity.
And a few days later,
The full moon rises into Aries.
Libra and Aries.
Other and self.
Relationship and individuality.
The sacred we and the sacred I.
And perhaps this is part of the invitation of this moment.
Can I belong completely to myself?
And still open completely to love.
Can I honor my own truth while remaining in relationship?
Can I love another without leaving myself?
Can I receive without losing my capacity to love?
Can I stand rooted in who I am and still allow love to transform me,
To move me,
To open me,
To expand me?
Feel that inside your body.
You belong.
To yourself.
And you belong to love.
Place one hand more deeply over your heart.
And silently or aloud repeat,
I belong.
To myself.
Breathe in.
I belong to myself.
And as you exhale,
I open myself to love.
I belong to myself.
I open myself to love.
Feel the strength of your inner masculine,
The part of you that creates direction,
Structure.
Clarity.
Protection.
Purpose.
Feel the wisdom of your inner feminine.
The part of you that receives,
Feels,
Creates,
Listens,
Intuits,
Flows.
You carry both.
Allow them to meet inside you.
Allow them to serve one another.
Allow them to bring you home to wholeness.
And remember who you are.
You are a goddess.
A priestess.
You are a sadhaka,
A woman devoted to practice.
Devoted to awakening.
Devoted to love.
You are a priestess of your own life.
You have inner tools,
You have outer tools,
You have your breath,
Your body,
Your movement,
Your voice,
Your mantra,
Your prayer,
Your intuition,
Your devotion,
Your faith,
Your capacity to create ritual and to make the ordinary sacred.
You can choose to make this threshold an auspicious time.
You can slow down.
You can walk barefoot on the earth.
You can look up at the sun.
You can hug a tree.
You can prepare beautiful food that comes from the earth and eat it with reverence.
You could light a candle.
You can journal.
You can chant,
You can dance,
You can paint.
You can sing.
You can sit beneath the moon.
You can make love.
You can rest.
You can listen.
And you can ask yourself.
What would make this season sacred?
For me.
What am I ready to call in?
What prayer wants to move through me?
What desire is alive in my heart?
What am I ready to nurture?
What am I ready to create?
What am I ready to become?
Allow your soul to speak.
Let your desires become prayers.
Let your prayers become offerings.
Let your life become your prayer.
And as we move toward the fullness of the moon imagine her light illuminating what is ready to be seen.
Illuminating more fully who you already are.
Your wisdom,
Your beauty,
Your power,
Your tenderness.
Your capacity to love.
Your capacity to begin again.
And now as you have one hand on your heart and one hand on your womb space.
Repeat these words slowly.
I deeply.
And profoundly.
Respect.
Forgive.
Celebrate.
Love myself.
And now take a deep breath.
And imagine God,
The goddess,
The divine love itself.
However you understand the secret.
Standing before you.
Imagine being seen completely.
Feel the divine looking into your eyes.
And hear these words spoken directly to you.
I deeply and profoundly accept you.
I deeply and profoundly respect you.
I deeply and profoundly forgive you.
I deeply and profoundly celebrate you.
I deeply and profoundly love you.
Just as you are.
And let yourself fully receive that.
Let yourself be loved.
And breathe that love into your heart,
Into your womb.
Into every cell of your body.
And remember,
You are light.
You are love.
You are life expressing itself through your beautiful human body.
And your light.
Is for you.
And it's for the world.
As a woman devoted to love,
You carry that love into relationships,
Your family,
Your community,
And the whole planet.
So as you cross the sacred threshold,
Ask one final question.
How do I want to bring my love into the world this next season?
Listen.
Perhaps the answer comes as words,
Perhaps as an image.
Perhaps as a sensation.
Perhaps there is only silence.
And it will come when it's ready.
Trust.
What comes and trust the silence too.
Take one final deep breath.
Receive the harvest,
Honor what has been,
Release what has completed its season,
Welcome what is becoming.
Light and darkness,
Giving and receiving,
Masculine and feminine,
Self and other,
Earth and sky,
Human and divine,
All of it held within the great embrace of love.
Bye.
Belong.
To myself.
I open myself to love.
I am devoted.
Term of.
And from this sacred juncture.
I step consciously and lovingly into the season that is calling me forward may it be sacred.
May it be beautiful.
I made the love that I cultivate within myself.
Become love.
Offered.
To the world.
Aum Shanti Shanti.
Shantiyo
