Community Dinner, September 21 — and Equinox Ceremony, and more!

I was unable to stay for the duration of this event, but did get to take a few pics at the beginning. And of course, to eat and drink, and to be present for part of the ceremony.

A number of neighbors had told me they were unable to come last night, due to prior plans, but even so, at least 15 people arrived, three of whom are brand new. So welcome Annette, Rachel, and Annie!

It was podmate Sam’s idea to drag out the carpets, which had been rolled up and stored in the shed which, BTW, he had just reorganized. Thanks Sam! And, as he noted, since the carpets are old and thin, they’re easy to roll and store and drag out every Thursday. YES!

After dinner Sam had agreed to do the ceremony for Fall Equinox, which started with his reading of some information that he picked up from the internet on the symbolic meaning of Fall Equinox for us personally. How each person needs to learn to balance two opposing forces within themselves, the “dark” and the “light,” just as day and night are in balance only during the Spring and Autumn Solstices. What must be integrated over the next three months, until Winter Solstice, when the night is longest and the day shortest, is the “darkness” within ourselves, some part of ourselves that seems opposite to how we’d like to think of ourselves, and thus we prefer not to look at; what we sometimes call “the shadow.”

In Green Acres Village, we consider “shadow work” to be an integral part of viable community life. In fact, as I am always emphasizing: we need to work with both, each of us continually, our own individual nature and expression, and the needs of the community as a whole. Both, continuously rebalancing them, if we wish to maintain authentic aliveness and avoid the (boring, dead end) opposites of hive mind or mayhem!

Here’s C. G. Jung’s trenchant commentary on this subject, and why it is so crucial to living and loving.

As an astrologer, I then riffed a bit on what Sam had just read, mentioning, among other things, that Autumn Equinox inaugurates 0°00 Libra, the first sign in the zodiac that focuses balancing the two poles of any personal relationship. (Whereas the first six signs, from Aries through Virgo, are concerned with the more and more precise evolution of  individual growth, with Libra, we begin to learn to dance, in balance, with others.)

Sam asked us then to each get a piece of paper and a pen (both of which he had set out on a bench), and to write down whatever polarity within ourselves we are needing to recognize and integrate during these next three months until Winter Solstice; then we would all offer them to the small fire he had started in the corner of the patio. Meanwhile, he said, if you have a “blessing” that you would like to offer on this Equinox evening, then write that on another piece of paper and put it in a jar, provided for the occasion. I love that idea! And ask that we place out that jar for every Community Dinner! May the blessings accumulate!

He then invited anyone who wanted to tell the group about what they were to balance and integrate within themselves to speak out loud. And amazingly enough, everybody did. I was both humbled and astonished to see/feel how vulnerable and open people became (some of whom had not met each other before) when they spoke about the conflicts inside them that need to be reconciled — and yet, as Rachel commented, how everybody’s (seemingly private) “issues” resonate with everybody elses’!

Steve, who has trained to be a Native American pipe carrier, had emailed me to ask if we wanted to do a pipe ceremony at the close of the Equinox ceremony. Well, yes! He brought his pipe and conferred with Sam beforehand, and from what I heard this morning (I had to leave the gathering then for a prior commitment), it was a wonderful way to end our GAV Equinox Celebration.

I got home about 11:30 last night. Andreas, Logan and Sam were still out there, under the lights Sam had strung overhead, Logan on guitar and singing.

This place is filled with music. So grateful!