Autumn Equinox

Consider...Setting aside some quiet time to look back on the Summer and look ahead to the Winter with this Equinox-themed Examen.

Step 1

Reflect on the Summer with Thanksgiving.

What will you harvest from the “crops” that grew over the summer? Name the gifts, be they things grown in your personal life, or things grown in community.

Step 2

Enter the Presence of the Divine.

Take a few deep breaths. Connect to the world beyond you - what are the sounds, feelings, or smells that bring you in sync with the slowing pace of the natural world? Find God in them, and enter into God’s ever-loving Presence.

Step 3

Let Your Emotions Guide You as You Read This Scripture.

Psalm 8

1 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,

to silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

4 what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.

6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Step 4

Pray About An Aspect of Your Summer.

What has been a blessing that can carry you through the cold season up ahead? Meditate on that.
Or...

What is no longer serving you and can be discarded? Or...

What do you hear a calling to meditate on?

Step 5

Pray for the Autumn and Winter.

Use the framework below to name your blessing, hurts, and worries, lifting them up to the God who blesses us with the natural rhythms of the Earth.