Autumn
Its correspondence to human life
September 22nd 2016
Every year, on 22 September, the sun enters the sign of Libra, beginning a new period. This is autumn, the time when ripe fruit is gathered, grain is sifted to be eaten or stored to be sown later so that the cycle can begin again. But this work of separating and sifting that occurs in nature applies not only to vegetation but also to human beings. For autumn is the time for the separation that Hermes Trismegistus speaks of in the Emerald Tablet, ‘You will separate the subtle from the gross with great diligence.’ You will separate the subtle from the gross, meaning the spiritual from the material. And so initiates, who participate in spirit in all of nature’s work, know that the time has come to let any dark matter remaining within them die, to allow true life its freedom.
And just as fruit is separated from the tree and stones or pips are separated from the fruit, so one day the soul will be separated from the body. The body is the soul’s covering, and the soul is the seed that will be sown above, in heaven. Once the human fruit is ripe, it does not fall back to earth like the seed of a plant, but flies up to heaven.