Sun in Libra: Sustainability and the Autumn Equinox

Sep 22

The sun enters Libra on the Autumn Equinox. For Pagans, the Autumn Equinox is a harvest festival, which is called Alban Elfed by the Druids and Mabon (reluctantly) by almost everyone else.

It may seem puzzling that the beginning of Libra season is celebrated with a harvest festival. Libra is associated with relationships, and when we think of relationships, we’re much more likely to think of relationships the way they’re celebrated at Beltane, the other Venus-ruled festival in May.

Relationships aren’t just between people, though. One of the beliefs that binds Pagans together is the belief that we have a relationship with the earth. The earth nurtures us, and we do our best to accept the sustaining care of the earth in a way that allows the earth to continue caring for generations to come.

Back in December, I joined the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and this year I’ve been working my way through the wheel of the year for the first time with an organization after years as a solitary practitioner.

Getting with the program has been a joy, and it has also been a challenge. I have an excessive number of planets in Aries and Aquarius. I’m not naturally much of a joiner. When you’re on your own, you can arbitrarily decide that you don’t like a certain holiday or theme and skip it. Working with an organization means that there are holidays and practices you like more than others, and they’re all part of the game.

OBOD is one of the least restrictive and demanding organizations I’ve ever encountered. There has to be flexibility in an organization that embraces atheists, Christians, and polytheists. If you don’t like the default, there is an alternative for pretty much everything, but the wheel of the year is important to Druid practice. I skipped the Beltane ritual, choosing instead to do some of the activities suggested as alternatives, and it felt like flaking on Thanksgiving dinner. Since then, I’ve decided to do the ritual of the season whether I feel like it or not.

I dreaded the decision to “just show up” by the time I reached Alban Elfed (the holiday (reluctantly) called Mabon by pretty much everyone who isn’t a Druid). I had been dealing with a series of things just irritating enough that I couldn’t brush them off, and I was not looking forward to celebrating the harvest. I didn’t feel like I've accomplished much this year, and I imagined myself doing the ritual sheepishly, awkwardly displaying my thin accomplishments.

Worse, one of the secondary themes of the ritual was sustainability. I hated the word “sustainability,” and that made me feel like a bad Pagan. Normally, I did my little recycling projects and tried not to think about it too hard, but an entire ritual dedicated to sustainability sounded like it was going to make that impossible.

I started the ritual, bracing myself for a humiliating slog. The reality was so different.

This is what I wrote in my journal:

I thought I had nothing to harvest this year, but the invitation to think about what sustained my body, heart, mind and passions revealed that I had so much more than I realized. I tend to think of "harvest" as accomplishments. More, more, more. But it isn't. The agricultural harvest is about gathering in that which sustains, not achievement or acquisition. I cried as I gathered the symbols for my basket and was filled with so much gratitude. It has been a hard year, but the love and support these symbols stand for has fed me and kept me alive. These are the things that sustain me. I very much want to keep the lens through which I view the world in this moment.

Later, I wrote to my mentor, “I feel like this ritual has shifted entirely my understanding of what sustainability means. It's about choosing and gathering that which supports and feeds. Sustainability sustains you.”

I used to hate the word “sustainability” because I assumed that you had to approach it from a goal-oriented, acquisitive framework. I have to support businesses who acquire a certain number of carbon credits or buy appliances with a certain energy star rating or increase my Prius’s gas mileage by such-and-such percent. It’s a heroic, Aries-American way of approaching the problem.

Through the ritual, I realized that by approaching “sustainability” that way I have just been greenwashing the mindset that supports unsustainable actions in the first place. When it is goal-driven, sustainability becomes a treadmill, a chore that is never finished, a list of things to buy (or not buy), achievements to unlock (or pleasures to abstain from).

Even when I tried not to think about it, the sustainability mindset kept me trying really hard and getting nowhere, feeling guilty for things I don't have the power to change, feeling like I'd never be good enough.

But, what if I don't have to hold up a yardstick to myself all the time? What if I just need to give and receive nourishment? What if sustainability is choosing right now the things which support health and happiness? Mine, others', my neighborhood, the earth?

That doesn't just feel doable, it feels inspiring. It doesn’t make me feel like a hero. It isn’t holding the impossible tide of climate change at bay, but it helps. And it is the sort of relationship-oriented way of being in the world that will get me and my community through the worst of it.

As soon as I framed things that way, the tension in my body immediately released. That kind of peace is a sure sign that you’ve connected with the spirit of Libra.

In that moment, I realized: Sustainability and harvest and Libra and real self-care are exactly the same.

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