Autumn Equinox: The Sun Enters the Libra Zodiac Sign

The fall equinox occupies a special place in the cycle of the seasons. It is halfway between the Summer and Winter solstices, and the Sun's entry into Libra ushers in a long period of darkness. In his book Symbols of Sacred Science, René Guénon discusses the importance of the solstitial doors (the Summer and Winter solstices, when the Sun enters the signs of Cancer and Capricorn, respectively). He does not give equal attention to the equinoxes, but his explanation of the seasonal cycle provides a profound exposition of the cyclical nature of time and of our world. The autumn equinox is an important point in this cycle.

Below is a graphic illustrating Guénon's description of the cycle of the seasons:

The four points of the compass are marked by the four cardinal signs, which represent the beginning of each season. You will note that the compass appears upside down, with South at the top. This is simply a way of describing the amount of light reaching us in the Northern Hemisphere at the different points in the cycle. During the summer solstice, we have the most light available to us, with long days in short nights. Therefore, in this representation, Cancer is at the top, while the longest night of the year represented by the Sun's entry into Capricorn is at the bottom. East and West representing the spring and autumn equinoxes, respectively, have small arrows indicating the direction of the cycle, with the left hand side representing increasing light, and the right-hand side representing decreasing light.

Note: This drawing is simply a shorthand graphic showing the cycle of the seasons as marked by the solstices and equinoxes. In astrology and astronomy, Cancer is normally associated with the direction North, not South, with the reverse being true for Capricorn. Such a compass, orienting Cancer/North at the top, represents the astronomical reality. The cycle described in this drawing an article is the terrestrial cycle, which is obviously the reverse of the astronomical arrangement.

The Fall Equinox and the Door of Man

Guénon says that the West direction represents darkness and death in mythologies worldwide, as this is the place where the sun sets. For instance, during his travels, Odysseus must travel West to the Land of the Dead to seek oracular pronouncements from the shades. Also, in Hindu cosmology, the "door of men" is situated in the South, and turned toward the West. This concept of doors is associated with the solstices, and merits its own article due to the complexity of the topic. For our present purposes, it is sufficient to understand that the "door of men" is the door through which spirits pass in order to be reincarnated on earth. This is the door that souls go through when they are caught up in the wheel of existence.

Using the metaphor of the summer solstice as the door of men is very helpful, because it invites the question of where the store might lead. We already know that the door of men leads West; the implication is that by its very nature, humanity and all manifest existence must come to an end. This is true on the individual level, since we all die, and also on the cosmological level, with the world being destroyed and reborn at long intervals.

Therefore, by returning to our human forms over and over again, we perpetuate the material existence wherein our bodies must necessarily decay and die. The autumn equinox is a reminder of the end of all physical things, though always with the realization that the cycle is endless. There will be countless other rebirths and deaths, from the smallest scale of our daily lives, through the end of our individual lives, all the way up to the vast multi-thousand-year Great Years of history.

Saturn and Ma'at at the Autumn Equinox

It is said that the planets are exalted in the signs they governed at the beginning of the world. As a result, we can learn something about the profound, hidden nature of each planet by understanding its role in the sign of its exaltation. The sign of Libra, which is the sign ruling the fall equinox, is the exaltation of the planet Saturn. Saturn is the pass-not of the planetary spheres; it represents time, death, and the inevitable decay of physical things. As such, it is the most appropriate planet for the West direction, where the dead go.

As a symbol of the inevitable laws governing our existence, Saturn has some similarity to the Egyptian goddess Ma’at. She was the goddess (or really, more like an abstract concept personified) of order and justice, who had come into being along with creation, which gives us a hint as to her true Saturnian nature. Since the moment a being is born, its very material existence guarantees its eventual demise, and Ma’at is there from the start. She was the goddess associated with the feather against which a dead person's heart was weighed after death. The fact that her counterweight is a feather, which anything made of gross matter must outweigh, implies that material creation can never “win” against the Saturnian restrictions of death and time. Like a feather, death and time are infinitely light, intangible and yet completely impassable from the material perspective.

Given Ma’at and Saturn's association with the scales, we see here a natural connection to the Scales of Libra, the sign that the Sun enters at the fall equinox. This is the sign where the Sun is in fall, as opposed to its exaltation in Aries. The fall equinox thus marks the halfway point on the descending axis between the complete light of the summer solstice and the complete darkness of the winter solstice.

The fall equinox is the perfect time to meditate on the distinctions between that which is ephemeral, and that which endures. From an Eastern perspective, because we live in a material world, we are surrounded by the great illusion of Maya. All things discernible by the senses must eventually pass into the West. Focusing on those things which endure trains our sights toward its opposite, in the East and the spring equinox, the place of eternal hope, as contrasted to the West, the place of eternal endings.

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