Fall Equinox Rituals for Holistic Wellness
What is the symbolic meaning of the fall equinox?
Spiritually, the fall equinox is all about endings and beginnings, with balance as its underlying essence. As the sun directly crosses the Earth’s equator, it brings a moment of equilibrium, with day and night holding equal sway, acting as a sweet reminder to find balance in our own lives. To support this transitional period and make use of this time, we’ll delve into a collection of fall rituals to lean into this season.
When does the fall equinox happen?
As summer slips away we enter the magical time of the fall equinox. In the Northern Hemisphere this falls on September 22 or 23, as the Sun crosses the equator going south. In the Southern Hemisphere the equinox occurs on March 20 or 21, when the Sun moves north across the equator.
The significance of Fall Equinox in Holistic Nutrition
The fall equinox is a beautiful opportunity to support our health, especially as the focus of balance is highlighted during this time. Losing balance within our life, pushing too much in one area while neglecting another, is a key reason that many of us find ourselves with health challenges. Our body is always seeking homeostasis, which is balance, but the way that we live today really makes this difficult, particularly with stress hormones constantly running too high.
As much as the body would like to make sure all areas of us are taken care of, it has to prioritize stress over everything else because that it’s our survival mechanism. What this means is that when stress is too high for too long, many other system in the body get put on the back burner, especially hormone production, digestion and metabolism. So with the fall equinox, we are reminded to seek balance by nourishing our body and minds, especially as our culture becomes ever more busy in the final months of the year.
Practices + Rituals for the Fall Equinox
– Gratitude –
Reflect on the light and beauty of the past year, giving gratitude to all that has manifested and the growth and expansion you experienced through the journey. This is a time of harvest, which means pausing to reflect and to give thanks for all that came to be, while also acknowledge the energy you put forth to create it. And while there will inevitably be seeds that never came to fruition, these loses tend to put us on the path we are meant to be on, making them a light disguised as darkness. If that doesn’t feel true in your body, it may be that some seeds just take longer to germinate.
– Reflect –
Take time to notice where you may be out of balance in your body, mind or life. Are you making enough time for play and rest? Are you nourishing yourself with foods that make you feel good? Are there any discomforts in your body or mind? What areas are calling for your attention? What do you wish to be that isn’t? I prefer to do this as a journaling practice because it requires complete sentences and thus complete thoughts. Vagueness doesn't tend to bring us anywhere meaningful in our life.
– Movement –
Focus on movement that feels grounding and strengthening such as yoga and pilates, while pulling back from high intensity exercise or long cardio session that tends to up-regulate the nervous system. As our culture speeds up and nature slows down, there is a disjointedness between our cyclical nature and our culture's habits. Balance the forward momentum in your life with grounding practices. Yoga is a powerful option because it combines movement with breath, sending us into the parasympathetic rest, digest and heal state. Just two practices a week have been shown to significantly decrease stress hormones.
– Mindfulness –
The Fall Equinox is a beautiful opportunity to create new rituals. With balance in mind, consider beginning your mornings with a mindfulness practice such as meditation. Meditation both relieves stress and creates resilience to stress, freeing up resources and energy that allow the body to heal and maintain health. Stress is highly demanding on the body so when the nervous system is constantly activated, many of the other systems in our body get down regulated, including metabolism, digestion and hormone production. Mindfulness is a key aspect of healing because stress is the Achilles’ heel of health.
– Nourish –
As the season transitions, focus on nutrient dense foods like colorful winter squash, root vegetables, alliums, cruciferous vegetables, herbs and spices like ginger and turmeric, and organic meats. These will flood your body with foods that support hormone balance, stress resilience and immune function. When you feel busy and over extended, be careful not to skip meals or under eat, as this makes you vulnerable to anxiety, fatigue, and hormone imbalances. And as always, keep blood sugar balanced to keep your body balanced. Dive deeper into what your body truly needs with one of my nutrition and wellness programs.
– Seek Joy –
Fatigue comes from many sources but one that often goes unnoticed is doing too little of the the things that light us up, resulting in a life lacking joy. Within our culture it’s normalized to center our life around our work and serving others, but when we have too little joy it can make us feel deeply out of balance and brings the heaviness of fatigue. Seeking joy will look different for everyone, for me it’s spending time in nature, dancing with my headphones on, reading in the sun, exploring creative endeavors, snuggling and being snuggled, connecting with friends, playing games with my love, seeing live music… Whatever it looks like for you is beautiful, just make time for the things that light you up. Joy is what gives life its sparkle.
– Process and Release –
In Asian mysticism, grief is the emotion associated with fall, which is intertwined with the theme of endings, leaves falling.. so you may be a little more blue and nostalgic than normal in the coming weeks. If heavy emotions arise I encourage you to turn towards these emotions rather than away. There is no such thing as “bad” emotions – they only become harmful when we suppress them and don’t give space to fully process and release. So have a good cry when you need one and do a journaling practice or meditation to process and release. In a culture obsessed with moving on and moving forward, it takes great awareness and bravery to move inward first, but this is how true healing happens. We can not heal what we don’t allow ourselves to feel.
Are your hormones out of balance?
At the time of the fall equinox there are 100 days left in the year. This is noteworthy because it is the precise amount of time it takes for the essential cycle of ovulation to occur, which is the key factor for healthy hormone production and thus the secret to balancing them. This alignment of ovulation and the days left in the year makes the fall equinox a beautiful time to begin the journey of balancing your hormones, particularly if you’re wanting to enter the year with more vibrancy and health.
If you're looking to begin the path towards hormonal harmony, join one of my nutrition and wellness programs!