Balance in a Relative Universe: Fall Equinox

Three harvest festivals there are in the Wiccan calendar. Wondrous abundance and welcome to Mabon, tucked nicely between Lammas in August (the berries!) and Samhain in October (the gourds!). Around here in southwestern Oregon, Mabon time is all about harvesting grapes for wine, and very fine wines they do have here, I can attest.

It’s also the Autumn Equinox, a lovely astronomical event wherein the day and night times are equal. And then we move on into the greater darkness of fall and winter. It’s a time of contemplation after our external efforts in the world earlier in the year.

Balance in a Relative Universe

Let’s begin with Justice. She carries a set of scales that measures the comparative mass/weight of things. The importance of the tool is not that it always creates a balanced measurement between objects, but that it accurately measures the imbalance between them. We don’t need everything to be balanced all the time, as it turns out; what we want to know is the relative imbalance at the time of measurement so we can figure out what the fairest (most balanced) decision will be.

In our lovely, ever-changing universe, though, restoring balance will always be a temporary goal, one that can never be reached absolutely or forever. So, I think what we often try to get to is a relative imbalance that isn’t too extreme, right? Progress, not perfection. And sometimes, for the sake of art or growth or science or love, we go for the extreme for a while to manifest a new creation. Think about times in your life when serious imbalances were also important lessons. But it’s also nice to rest in balance, at least for a day, like the Sun does at the equinoxes.

The Virtue of Temperance

Justice and her scales all nicely balanced are well and good, for a moment, or a legal case, but our relative universe works in constant motion of waves of energy and the shapes that gravity creates. I think Temperance is more appropriate for managing balance in the world as it really works. We can use this virtue to surf the gravity waves in our own lives the way the Earth does as it rides around the Sun to make our seasons.

Gravity Wave Spread

Let’s see what the Tarot has to say about our search for the right moves to surf a gravity wave with grace and maybe even some balance here and there. We’ll use four cards for the four forces that make the fabric of our universe go: the strong force and weak force that make atoms work, the electromagnetic force that makes it possible for me to write this post and communicate with you, and the force of gravity, which cradles and guides celestial bodies (and ours).

1. What is the most powerful small move I can make to pull this thing together the way I want it?
2. What is the most subtle and diplomatic thing I can do to restore balance here?
3. What’s my best method of communicating/emanating energy to make this work?
4. What’s the best way to attract a great solution in this case?

I hope you’ll try my spread on a question you have about the best way to surf the imbalances in your life.