I woke up suddenly around 3:30am this morning.  It wasn’t just a minor stirring amidst the sheets, a quick mid-sleep water break or dazed round-trip to the bathroom.  My eyes came fully open and my head was clear, although my thoughts were anything but.  I’d gone to bed early after my Sunday rehearsal and a quick dinner. However, despite pleasant company throughout I felt unsettled and withdrawn the whole evening, and not in a particularly social mood.  Some words I’d spoken still hung in my ears:

“I feel like a stone in the eye of a tornado.  Like I’m barely holding onto balance while everything around me goes crazy. And I mean batshit crazy.”

At that moment, I hadn’t made any connections between that phrase to any other particular event or circumstance. There’s been an awful lot on my mind over the last couple years, and I know at times things have seemed a little scattered. It’s been sometimes hard to put a finger on exactly which brush fires are causing me the most heat, generally speaking. But when I looked at the calendar again things started to come more into focus.

Today is, of course, the beginning of the Spring Equinox. And eerily, today’s 12-hour spring equinox began at exactly 3:28am local time.  To be clear, I don’t place stock entirely in coincidence, nor entirely in fate.  But that’s a pretty fucking weird connection.

I did a little early-morning iPad searching on ‘equinox’.  Turns out the spring, or vernal equinox, is all about new beginnings- you know, Easter and all?  Rebirths.  And that theme felt all too familiar.

I couldn’t really sleep after that, and spent the next hours tossing and turning in bed trying to force myself into slumber.  Rebirth, or coming back to life both literally and metaphorically, has weighed heavily on me for a few years now.  It all came rushing back fast and hard.

These re-attempts at sleep were punctuated by a few pitch-dark barefoot excursions following various paths throughout my silent condo, up and down the stairs, out onto the deck, back and forth through the empty rooms.  Without my son here last night, my place felt more empty and cold than usual. I found my mind tracking back to older memories and the healing footpaths I’d walked across them, too.

I pondered my bike accident’s way-too-near death experience.  The depth and magnitude of it’s effect on me as a person.  The metric tons of shit, spanning every aspect of my life, which that accident stirred up and threw into my face. All the preconceptions of life and the world I used to have – before everything changed.

There was much pacing and consideration of the trust issues which sprang up as a result of my fractured marriage and personal life.  Juxtaposed tragically by my base reflex to give everyone my trust, even long after they’ve abused it.  I worked so hard to move past all those issues.  A long night of the soul to dig it all back up didn’t seem fair today, or appropriate.

I re-faced my deepest fears of not being able to provide for my family, my son.  More specifically, of ever having that ability taken away from me again by having my body and spirit so broken I’m unable to leave bed.  All the insecurities my long months of rehabilitation opened up, and recently took every ounce of my attention and energy to finally let go of.

I reflected on the pressures of becoming single again. Of opening up to someone else again. I miss the deep connection. But it’s been hard to tell what dating even means these days, as the world has changed so much since I was last single. It’s particularly confusing to have to manage my physical and emotional reflexes so closely after having been in an expressive relationship for so long.

These were all familiar, lonely paths that I treaded during my healing process. The lessons I took from them served as the foundation for my growth.  Yet last night, after months of rest, they all swirled up around me again like unresolved, ethereal ghosts, caught between spiritual realms.  They haven’t tried to trip me up so directly in quite some time.

And oh, the timing.  Why now?

The last week has been a veritable shit storm of turmoil for many people around me. Friends, family, my ex-wife, my son-  I won’t dig into their issues, but suffice it to say it’s all affected me far more than I’d like.  And these particularly challenging last few weeks all came to a head this weekend.  I’ve been doing my best to accept the nuanced realities of my new life, but the last 10 days or so have been a serious challenge to my calm. They’ve affected me so deeply I spent most of the last weekend avoiding people in general to try and solidify my sense of balance.

And my current, tenuous state of balance is clearly why the equinox hit me so hard today.

According to references, the equinoxes signify a midpoint, an equal distribution of power, creating contrast between dark and light, the yin and yang, the feminine and masculine. While I might be personally in a point of balance, even then the extremes of each spectrum lay furthest to both sides- and pull heavily.  The equinoxes also signify a time of synthesis and resolution, bringing lessons learned to a focused center, and making them a part of you. In these times even the slightest imbalance gets heightened, amplified.

Well that resonates with me, too.

I’ve certainly learned a lot of lessons over the last year or two. But learning lessons isn’t just sitting in peace weighing strengths and faults. It means making hard choices and bold steps needed to move past those faults and to never again allow them to root down in your life. And I think moving forward may be the crux of today’s revelations.  Or at least moving from where I’m at.

Oddly, I only feel unsure of the choices and steps I need to make when I’m thinking broadly.  As soon as I focus on specific paths that have presented themselves, connections become clear.  Possible milestones are apparent.  Confused energy starts to make sense.  Is it the equinox, ushering in a balance out of all my turmoil?  Or just a shitty night’s sleep taking it’s toll?

I’m thinking the first.  Many doors have recently opened, paths have become evident, options have revealed themselves in the prior weeks. And across all aspects of my life, too.

Just as oddly, my early morning revelations all correspond to personal goals I’d written down a few months ago as guiding principles for my personal growth and rediscovery.  Almost perfectly, in fact.  Perhaps all the spiritual equinox associations are a bit more than arcane folklore?

Some of my revelations from last night are hard goals- specific goals I’d like to achieve.  Some are more aspirations, directions I feel drawn towards but don’t want to dictate lest they develop unnaturally.  Some are just abstract feelings, people, or scenarios I’d prefer more or less of in my life.  And some of these revelations had started motion well before this morning, for reasons only just now becoming apparent.

One point became clear in the throes of this morning’s equinox, however- although I might have reached a plateau in my healing process, I’m not quite through with it yet.  It’ll just need to take a new form in order to keep moving forward.  I have to put my metaphorical crutches aside and walk forward now, on my own two feet.  And that’s probably going to involve some stumbling.

I still can’t really say it was the equinox that gave me such a deep spiritual jolt today.  Something surely did, however.  And when all my paths collide as they did at 3:30am this morning, I’ve got to give weight to those signs, and adjust my path.  Adapting seems to be what I do best, after all.  Time to level-up… again.

(deep inhale)