Traveling between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres near the solstices can be tough. Climb aboard a jet in San Diego on a sweltering day in August, and expect a shock when you arrive twelve hours later in chilly, midwinter Auckland.
But nearer the equinoxes in late September and late March, which mark the beginning of autumn and spring, you can fly from one hemisphere to the other and notice little difference. If no one told you, you’d be hard pressed to say whether you were in the season of autumn’s endings or of spring’s beginnings.
In life, too, there is little difference between endings and beginnings. Their borders overlap and are softly blended. Beginning something always, by definition, marks the end of an era, and endings herald the dawning of a new one.
The equinoxes are like twilight, like the golden, hazy hours just after dawn and just before sunset. Cinematographers love to film during these hours, because the footage for one can double for the other time of the day. They call it “magic hour.”
Are you beginning something now? Or are you ending something? Is it autumn in your life, or is it spring?
It’s both. It’s the equinox. It is magic hour.
