Autumn Equinox and the Well of Wisdom

So, the autumn equinox arrives. So, once again, we swing into the other half of life. Between the light and dark, between summer and winter, between dancing and dreaming, life has put up a swing.

Summer is filled with outward, ebullient growth, action, and light. The summer is the sensory, sensuous half of the year. Then, equinox comes, and we are called inward - called back home like the grazing animals, called to our dark center, to our boundless in-scape, our inner expansive mystery, which is painted on the land by the cooling air, the draining of the green from the land, the exit of birds.

The Celtic wisdom keepers tell us about the well of wisdom which can be found in the Otherworld. Five streams flow from the well, out through the world. These are the five physical senses. The summer is the radiant, joyful expression of those five sense-streams. Then the equinox arrives, and we are called to the other part of the well of wisdom – the center, the source, out of which all five streams flow.

The Celts remind us that to be fully alive and human, fully in our power, is to drink not only from the

five streams of the senses, but also from the very source of water. The fall equinox calls us home from the summer dance, back to the source-pool of mystery. We need both of these energies, or we lose our depth, our humanness, and we get trapped in our small self, our false personality.

It's easy to get lost focusing our attention only on the five streams, sometimes frantically leaping from one to the other, trying to gulp down as much as we can. Most of our cultural training is about “achieving” entrance to the dance party, and then doing anything at all to stay there.

The great secret: every human drinks from the source. The five streams flow from the source, so with every bit of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, you drink from the source too. You don’t have to “be” spiritual, act spiritual, or do spiritual things in order to drink from the source. If you are alive, you are already drinking from the source.

I point this out to help lift any of that old German Protestant work ethic that may be weighing you down (“You are only worthwhile if you verk, verk verk!”). I also point it out to dissolve any spiritual arrogance burdening you (“I work so hard spiritually, and really, I am a little holier than other people.”). The truth is, God, Earth Mother, Spirit – none of them judge your worthiness. It’s only people who love that.

If we come here to Earth School to learn our karmic lessons, if we enroll in the University of Imposed Physical Limits (“go, fightin’ Egos! Rah! Rah!”) to advance our eternal soul by having material experiences, we will do all of it, whether or not we get super spiritual, or learn those secret techniques, or meditate longer than anyone we know, or get that certification in shamanic quantum spinning and weaving. None of that makes you more spiritual or more worthy. There is no spiritual competition. No one is better at this than you, nor ever was, nor ever will be.

The only purpose of any spiritual training, no matter what shape it takes, is to make your drinking from the well of life conscious rather than unconscious. When we do the work of life more consciously, it reduces unnecessary suffering. Rather than learning our assigned karmic lessons through repetitive disasters, we can learn them through wonder, beauty, love, and awe. Shamanism reminds us that everything is energy, and it’s up to us which energies we choose to swim in.

The Celtic wisdom keepers acknowledge that it is not easy to make one’s way to the well of life in the otherworld, and then it’s not easy to drink from the center. It takes some dedication, stamina, curiosity, courage, a map, a guide. To make your way to the well, to drink, not only unconsciously from the five streams, but the center itself, is the path of being not just “one who lives,” but “one who makes life an art.” It is to become one of the Aes Dana (“Ace Dahna”) - one who is blessed by the Great Mother of life. Another translation is “one of the gifted people.” Dedication to making your way to the source reaps the gift of making life not a mere stumbling of hormones, genes, and reactions, but an art.

At this Autumn equinox, I wish you a beautiful journey home, a smooth swing into the dark half of the year, a good entrance into the dreaming time, a good journey of making your life an art.