Today is the Autumn Equinox

Today, 23rd September, we arrive at the Autumn Equinox. 🌊

Here's something I find quietly magical: there are only 2 days in the year when the sun rises due east and sets due west, wherever you are in the world, and those are the equinoxes.

Every other day, it rises and sets a little north or south of those points.

For this brief moment, day and night hold almost equal hours. Then the wheel turns, the autumn winds pick up, the light begins to wane and the sea starts its slow cool towards winter. The equinox also brings some of the biggest tides of the year, so you may notice the water reaching further up the shingle and pulling back further than usual.

Our ancestors understood this moment as sacred. It was a still point in the year, where light and dark, life and death, growth and rest held one another in perfect balance. Temples, stone circles and long barrows were built to catch the equinox sunrise, honouring and anchoring that celestial balance here on earth…

Heaven on earth,

And heaven within the earth.

And remember, as sea bathers we feel these turnings in our bodies more than most. The water tells us the season is changing long before the calendar does.

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🌓 An Equinox Dip ~

If you can, head down to the beach and greet the sea and offer thanks to it for all it gives and has given you. These are practices long forgotten, but were once commonplace. Before you go in, pause and give thanks for everything this year has brought you, and for all the summer swims we've shared together.

As you enter the water, let it be a moment of balance: breathe, settle, feel the cold and the light meet within you.

And if you can make it for sunset, face west and give yourself full permission to release whatever no longer serves you. Let the tide carry it out, as you make ready for the richness of autumn and the bracing swims of winter ahead.

Please take extra care with the big equinox tides and stronger currents, swim within your limits and never swim alone.

See you in the sea 💙

Wonderful photo of the sunrise by Julie Goldsmith