The year’s most powerful times to bring healing and balance to relationships occur on the Spring and Fall Equinoxes. That’s when the equal days and nights bring the universal masculine and feminine forces into balance on earth. In the spring, this occurs between March 20 and 22, and in the fall from September 20 to 22.
Universal energies are seen as having both masculine and feminine elements in many mythologies worldwide, opposites whose dual presence is required to bring the Universe into a state of harmony and balance. The Taoist Chinese symbol for yin and yang, with its swirling, almost-touching curves of black and white, each with a dot of its opposite at the heart, is probably the most popular image that illustrates this concept. Black and white in this context are not about good and evil. Rather, they are balancing and necessary forces, like day and night.
Yin and Yang in Psychology
Psychologist Carl Jung and popular mythologist Joseph Campbell believed that myths and stories of gods, goddesses, heroes, and villains reveal universal truths and illustrate how to how to achieve emotional maturity and personal well being. Jung believed the mythical gods and heroes actually exist in the collective unconscious, and affect individuals and the world at large.
According to Jung, the psyche of every woman contains a balancing male presence called the animus, just as men’s inner landscapes contain the feminine anima. These presences appear in dreams and can dramatically affect your relationships with the opposite sex.
Bringing the polar opposite in your own psyche into full maturity and psychological health is probably the most empowering thing you can do on either Equinox.
Spring’s Myths
In seasonal mythologies, the god or masculine force appears full-grown at the Spring Equinox. He is a warrior armored with the Sun, full of vigor and fertility. The goddess or feminine force enthusiastically welcomes of her mate and equal. Between the Equinox and Beltane (May 5), they do a courtship dance, consummating their relationship on Beltane, and emerging fully mature at the Summer Solstice, the mythical King and Queen of Earth and Heaven.
Preparing for Your Meditation
Because the god is associated with increasing light and energy, Spring and Summer are the best times to attend to the animus, or, for men, your innate masculinity. Before you do the meditation, think about these things:
The Spring Equinox is an opportunity for women to go within and conjure your inner masculine or animus as the most self-actualized, compelling, protective, strong, and responsible being you can imagine.
For men, this is the time to dig deep into your experience, personal history, dreams, and imagination, resurrecting and creating high and far-reaching values and ideals, which motivate you to expand and grow as a man.
Equinox Meditation
The meditation itself is simple. Find a quiet and relaxing space, get comfortable, and go within. Now, focus on your heart chakra, and see within the presence of your inner, gender-based being and your anima or animus inhabiting your heart space. Notice their relative positions, the strength of each one’s energy, and how they relate to each other.
Next, imagine that you have placed all the wonderful things you’ve created for your inner masculine entity in a golden bowl. Imagine yourself stepping into your heart chakra and pouring all of the powerful energy, ideas, and feelings you’ve created into him through the top of his head. Then see him expanding, becoming more light-filled, clearer, energetic, and vivid. Tell yourself, and him, that this expanded state is permanent, and that he will continue to be expanded by the energies you have poured into him.
Now, step back and look at your inner masculine and feminine presences together. Do they match? Are they suitable for each other? Will they support and enhance each other as they help you navigate your day-to-day world? If not, allow your inner Wise Being to consider how they may be brought into balance by deepening and strengthening the feminine, and use those insights in your Fall Equinox meditation.
Believing is Seeing
Was it author Wayne Dyer who first said “believing is seeing?” Whoever said it, it is true that a change in your beliefs automatically and immediately begins the process of change in your daily life. The process of imagining and balancing with your ideal animus or anima will have a profound effect on your relationships, as well as your inner life.
