Honouring the Equinox
So long, Australian summer and happy Equinox! On Sunday March 20th at 3.51 pm (AEDT), the Sun crosses the celestial equator and moves into Aries (from an Astrological perspective).
Around the world, day and night are close to equal length – it depends on latitude. This Equinox heralds the season of autumn in the southern hemisphere and spring in the northern hemisphere.
It’s a powerful time of the year – not just because it’s the beginning of autumn and the season that encourages letting go and of harvesting our efforts from spring and summer – but because it’s just before a lunar eclipse in Libra on March 23rd.
Ancient Wisdom
Ancient civilisations celebrated the wonder of cosmic timing, celestial events and the solar system and built spectacularly precise monuments that clearly demonstrate their detailed knowledge and skills.
Chichén Itza in Yucatan, Mexico has the shadowy image of Quetzalcoatl slinking down the Temple of Kukulcan at the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. This pyramid highlights the superiority of the Maya’s in mathematics and building. The Maya calendar is represented by the 91 steps on each of the four sides of the Temple, which with the top platform adds up to 365 days of the year.
Many wise civilisations revered the magnificence of the sacred by building structures that mirrored cosmic timing. A few examples are the Temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia; Tikal in Guatemala; Grianàn of Aileach in Ireland; the Sphinx and Great Pyramid in Egypt; Stonehenge in England; and Mnajdra in Malta.
Why were they built?
While research on their purpose talks frequently about the agriculture calendar, perhaps they are also there to remind us of the grace of one-ness and the ever- present challenge of duality and separateness on Earth.
At the Autumn Equinox it’s time to examine our dark side when the Sun, metaphorically speaking, descends into the underworld. When we’ve resolved our shadow issues we can emerge with the light and spiritual resurrection at the Spring Equinox. As above so below – just a thought.
Ancient and contemporary wisdom features astrology, symbolism and cultural practices as important tools for understanding ourselves. The rhythms of nature, the bigger picture, our development and potential over this lifetime and our interaction with the divine are often seen in ancient monuments. Wisdom Frontier’s stories for kids and teens weaves astrology and alternative cultural practices into exciting plots in a positive and nurturing way.
