MABON: The Body Knows Before the Calendar Does

Shorter days. Longer, cooler nights. The sun lower on the horizon. Leaves shimmering with the first hints of gold.

Summer is relinquishing its hold.

Just a week ago I was in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The days were hotter than I wanted them to be, but the nights were cool. Fog hung in the air for hours every morning, lingering between the trees and settling into the valleys.

I didn't want to leave.

I wanted to remain immersed in those mountains, where fall had already begun quietly supplanting summer.

A few hundred miles later, I returned to summer in Alexandria. The heat remained powerful. But when night came, I felt it.

The shift.

Something in the breeze had changed.

Summer is finally letting go.

And my body is craving something more.

Your Body Knows Before Your Head

Long before we had weather apps, electric lights, central heating and grocery stores filled with strawberries in January, our bodies lived by the seasons.

They still do.

Cooler, longer nights can feel like an invitation to power down a little earlier, open the windows and let the night air inside, or crawl beneath the covers sooner. Our appetites may begin shifting toward the foods arriving with the harvest: warm apples, cinnamon oatmeal, roasted vegetables, soups, herbs and warming spices.

Modern life does a remarkable job of pretending seasons don't matter. We can work under artificial light long after sunset, control the temperature inside our homes, eat almost anything at any time of year and maintain essentially the same schedule in July that we keep in January.

But the body is still paying attention to light, temperature and the world around us.

Perhaps that's why seasonal transitions offer such a useful invitation: Notice.

In Chinese Five Element tradition, autumn is associated with Metal, along with the lungs and large intestine, and with themes of release, refinement and letting go. Air, too, has long been associated in Western traditions with breath, thought and clarity.

Different traditions. Similar invitation.

Breathe.

Clear away what has become unnecessary.

Make room for what comes next.

We don't need to adopt any particular system of belief to become curious about our own rhythms. We simply need to begin paying attention.

What is your body telling you as the season changes?

Simplicity Living Practice: Ask What Your Body Needs

Today, don't begin with what you think you should be doing for fall. Begin with your body.

Find somewhere quiet and sit for a few minutes. Put your feet on the floor or the earth. Take several slow breaths. Then ask: What do I need as I enter this next season?

Don't rush to answer. Notice what comes first.

More sleep? Warmer food? Movement? Solitude? Time outside? Less stimulation? More structure? Something you can't quite name yet?

Write it down.

Tonight's First Quarter Moon is in Scorpio, a pairing that lends itself beautifully to this kind of inquiry. The First Quarter Moon is traditionally a time of movement and commitment—energy building toward something rather than away from it. Scorpio invites us beneath the obvious answer toward whatever may be hiding underneath.

So go a little deeper.

What is my body asking for that I have been ignoring?

Then bring in today's color: red.

Wear something red. Light a red candle. Write with a red pen. Eat something naturally red. You don't have to believe the color possesses some mysterious power. Simply allow it to become a visual cue:

Pay attention.

And then keep your journal somewhere you can return to it.

This is where practice becomes interesting.

Over the coming days and weeks, notice what happens around the thing you wrote down. Notice opportunities. Coincidences. Changes in your own behavior. Things that suddenly seem visible that you hadn't noticed before.

This is part of manifestation that I think we sometimes overlook. Manifestation isn't only about asking the universe for something and waiting for it to arrive on the doorstep.

It is also about becoming attentive enough to recognize movement when it begins.

Tonight at approximately 11:30 p.m. Eastern, the Moon goes void of course. In traditional astrology, this is the period after the Moon makes its final major aspect in one zodiac sign and before it enters the next. Rather than beginning something new, the void is traditionally considered a time for pausing, reflecting, finishing and simply allowing things to be.

Which seems like rather lovely timing.

You've asked the question.

You've written down the answer.

Now stop trying to make anything happen.

Go to bed.

Let the night have it.

Sage Wisdom

We spend much of our lives asking the mind to make decisions the body has already made.

The body speaks differently. A tightening. A softening. Restlessness. Relief. A craving for warmth, movement, sleep, solitude, food, touch, air.

Its language is sensation.

The wisdom isn't in obeying every impulse. It's in becoming quiet enough to hear what is being said—and curious enough to ask why.

This is one of the gifts of living seasonally. The changing Earth gives us a reason to check in with the changing self.

You are not the same person in September that you were in June.

Why would your needs be the same?