“An equinox occurs twice a year around
20 March and 22 September…The oldest meaning is the day when daytime and night are
of approximately equal duration…An equinox occurs when the plane of the Earth’s
Equator passes the center of the Sun.” [Wikipedia] This
year’s September equinox occurred at 02.29 on September 23
What
effect did the passing of the Equinox have on you? Here in Southern Ontario,
were you mourning the fewer hours of daylight? Did you think with regret of the cool, wet
summer with the lack of hot weather in which to enjoy the beaches? Or perhaps
you regret not taking full advantage of the good weather whenever it arrived?
Are you looking forward to the crisp autumn days, or perhaps even to getting
out the skis and heading to the slopes with the arrival of the first snowfall?
These are all valid responses to this event…
But
perhaps the best response to this landmark of the passing of the seasons, and
so of the passing of the time of our own lives, is not to dwell on the missed opportunities
of the summer past nor to spend our time wishing for what is yet to come, but rather to take each one of the golden autumn days, and appreciate it
for what it is when it is; to live fully into each day
After
reading one of my recent blogs about growing older, a reader asked me if I had
any thoughts about ‘regrets’; specifically about dealing with the time we still
have left by having to say ‘goodbye’ to
something that isn’t going to happen. And then to other side of this- deciding what we don’t need to say goodbye to because it is in fact something we should
be doing in whatever time we have left. And perhaps autumn teaches us just
that.
As
we grow older and become aware that the time remaining to us is limited, it is
even more important to live each day to the fullest as it comes along with no
regrets over things not done. We need to grab onto each new opportunity that
comes our way. Practicing meditation is one way to achieve this: as we learn to
shut down the incessant chatter in our minds about what ‘might have been’ had
we only done ….. or not done …. . These are the thoughts that lead us into both
the past and the future. We have to learn to let the regrets and the desires go,
to concentrate on the here and now, in order to truly live into each day as a new day.
As
it says in Isaiah 43:18-19 [NIV]: “Forget
the former things, do not dwell in the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now
it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and
streams in the wasteland.”
What
regrets about things done or opportunities left untouched do you need to let go
of in order to live fully into each day ?
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