Tonight, around 11 pm EDT, the earth's axis and orbit line up so that both hemispheres are balanced to receive an equal amount of sunlight. An equal amount of dark and light everywhere except the poles. This is built into the cosmic design of the earth in relationship with her sun. And in us, as part of this earth and sun relationship. The vernal equinox announces Hildegard's veriditas, "the power of the greening," with the advent of spring.
Most humans are no longer deeply immersed in or attuned with the natural rhythms and wisdom of earth. So these yearly equinox cycles can serve as markers and invitations into our own rebalancing. The equal amount of light in both hemispheres of the earth raise up the symbology of the balance, and imbalance, between the hemispheres of our brain and how that influences the worlds we create. The paradigm shift of our time calls for a rebalancing - the imbalance of the dominant masculine and of patriarchy, and of disconnection from the feminine and nature. The masculine/feminine polarity also connects with the left and right brain hemispheres of the brain. In eastern spiritual and healing traditions, the left hemisphere innervates the right side of the body, associated with the masculine, and the right hemisphere of the brain innervates the left, associated with the feminine. Noticing what energies are out of balance and rebalancing them is key to healing.
As the human brain evolved toward modernity, there was a shift in reliance and development of the left hemisphere of the brain. This brought about the sciences, technologies, literalness, details, linearity, dissection of wholes, and a view of the universe and our world as mechanical, as separate, as and an impoverished right hemisphere. And to a view of the world as separate objects. There's a lot of meaningful and needed change the development of the left hemisphere brought to the human species, but at what cost? What have we missed in the imbalance of left over right?
In his masterpiece of a book, The Master and His Emissary, author and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist brilliantly tells the story of human civilization from the perspective that left hemisphere dominance has led to a civilization that has separated itself from nature and relationship, with vast impact on culture, society and history. Right hemisphere diminishment can be seen throughout history with the suppression and oppression of "superstition," women, human rights, indigenous peoples and cultures, nature. In the every day world, we can see how embedded this is within us, in a distrust of our own inner knowing, intuition, and our bodies, or how we feel as a separate "I" within the reality of our interconnection and interdependence.
The equinox invites us to recover this balance of both hemispheres by intentionally developing and learning to trust the right hemisphere that sees in wholes, relationships between, connections, intuition. Together with the well-developed atomistic left hemisphere, can lead to integration and balance.
The world of the right hemisphere connects with our inner felt senses that knows our inherent interconnection with one another, with all of nature around us and in us, with all creatures and beings, with a larger whole. Spirituality associated with this hemisphere looks like direct connection with the sacred without limits or interventions or rules. But this connection has been severed through imbalance, and our ability to know through other senses beyond our thinking mind has been suppressed. A rebalancing of hemispheres can create new worlds where relationship and the whole is key rather than severance and fragmentation. A spirituality and culture of direct connection with the holy in all things.
Colin Campbell, a South African teacher, diviner, and ritualist, says that divination is really about rebalancing what has become unbalanced within us and around us. It's about being so intimately connected with nature, within the places where we live, and our own inner nature, that we can track what is out of sync and restore balance. He says,
"Just tracking what is out of balance, and bringing awareness to that imbalance, restores it. This is done as an individual, and within totality of the environment, in the context of community. There are a number of interfaces that happens, between the human world and the rest of nature. The interface between land and water, earth and sky, what is seen and not seen. Realms we don’t have access to in physical senses, we have access to in divination."
These quotes were from a webinar I watched, so I'm sorry there are no footnotes...
Although it has been suppressed as ungodly, demonized as evil, divination is about rebalancing what is out of balance and restoring what has been separated. Campbell also teaches that the Diviner archetype is within each of us, although it has been deeply suppressed, and oppressed, to be almost completely hidden from us. He emphasizes that simply bringing awareness to it, this archetype can reactivate within us. Trusting that it is an innate part of being human that was shut down by colonization, violence, power, and control, can be a process of recovery and remembering. While this sounds "easy" - just bringing awareness to it - can grow that sensitivity to our outer and inner environments, we need practice and we need community. It's very counter-cultural to move into this way of being, to trust it. We need each other.
For me, Church of the Wild is about participating in this rebalancing toward wholeness, out of separation toward relationship, rooting more deeply in our interconnection with all of the alive world and each other. It's about remembering our birthright and what has been lost or suppressed. Developing the right hemisphere of the brain. Integration. Activating our inner Diviner, our inner Equinox. This is the work I'm dedicated to, where transformation arises, both individually and culturally.
Wild blessings this equinox day to the Diviner within you.