Personal energy audit

Jefferson Breland

(9/2023) On September 23 at approximately 2:49 a.m. the 2023 Autumnal Equinox will occur.

Equinoxes are generally described as when there is as much daytime as nighttime. Astrologically, the Spring and Autumnal equinoxes occur when the Sun crosses what some people call the "celestial equator"—an imaginary extension of Earth’s equator line into space. And by Astrologically, I mean the equinox occurs at the visible, observable moment the Sun passes through the invisible, imaginary line someone says extends out to meet the Sun. I am guessing there is math involved.

This is all well and good, but what, might you ask, does this have to do with my health?

If we look at time and the seasons as something that just goes by, then we are missing many wonderful opportunities to help our health and therefore ourselves.

Autumn or Fall is an essential time of the year.

Agriculturally, it is the end of the growing season. Farmers must harvest their crops. They must make repairs of equipment and fencing before Winter begins in earnest. Farmers must prepare the fields for any Winter crops. They must make sure livestock have sufficient shelter and food for the coming months.

Trees begin to prepare for the colder months by sending vital nutrients to their roots and dropping their leaves. (The nutrients in the leaves enter the soil and become a source of food for the tree in about two years time.)

Mammals begin to store food sources in the form of body fat or by caching food they later retrieve in the Winter months.

Humans prepare for Winter by consuming large quantities of pumpkin-spiced products, counting the days until Christmas, and devising ways to avoid least favorite relatives at Thanksgiving.

In short, humans prepare by doing the opposite of what Nature does. We are really good at being very busy during the winter months when the rest of nature is really good at being as quiet and still as possible.

In ancient times, it was easier to understand how important and critical Fall was.

It is the season before the coldest time of year. No one knew how long it would be. One had to prepare for the worst case scenarios. Was there enough wood, sod, manure, or coal for heating and cooking? Was there enough food stored? Do we have enough food for the livestock? Do we have easy access to water supplies that won’t freeze? Do we have enough warm clothing?

Are our homes weather tight and safe? Does the roof leak? Is it strong enough to support heavy snowfall. Does wind whistle through any openings in the walls and around the doors. Is there adequate and safe ventilation for the fires inside the structure?

In these modern times, we still do some of this stuff. We make sure our structures are sound. We make sure the flues in our chimneys are working. We make sure the furnaces are ready to go. In general, at least with our homes, we make sure to conserve our energy usage and we plug any energy leaks.

In the English language, the oldest name for the season which includes the months of September, October, November, and parts of December is Harvest. Apparently the season was called Harvest because that is what humans did during this time of year.

Then in the 1300s, the word for the transitional season between Summer and Winter became Autumn, from the Latin word Autumnus for this season. Curiously, there is no consensus as to the origin of this word. Go figure.

At some point in the 1600s, the word Fall began to be used to describe this transitional season. Some speculate the name has something to do with what the leaves do. I believe Fall, was introduced so that hundreds of years later we could describe the transition from daylight savings time to standard time and vice versa as "Fall back, Spring ahead." Scholars strongly disagree over this conjecture, but I am sticking to my story.

Fall and Autumn duked it out for primary usage in the English language over the next couple of centuries. Both terms were used in the United States for a while. Eventually, our American ancestors came down on the side of Fall while our stodgy British counterparts held true to Autumn.

Somehow this brings me to our upcoming Autumnal Equinox when the energies of the day and night are balanced for a few moments. It is a time when all the energies, gravitational, inertial, the weak force, the strong nuclear force, and electromagnetic force, conspire to create a moment of balance on all levels- cosmic as well as the subatomic.

What if we could benefit from this balance in our solar system? According to modern science, we CAN benefit.

We have learned from the latest modern sciences, namely quantum physics, that everything is energy. Everything. What seems solid to us is actually fluctuating energy that only appears to be solid. Sounds crazy right?

So if everything in the Universe is energy, all we have to do is make ourselves available to the energy in nature. How do we do this?

First, it helps to shift our beliefs to include the idea that nature’s energy is available to us. I bet dollars to donuts you already have an embodied experience of this.

Do you have a favorite season? Why do you think it is your favorite season?

"I like the cold." "I prefer the heat of Summer." "My favorite season is Spring because everything is coming to life." "I love the Fall because the leaves are so beautiful." We might look at these statements as personal preferences. We can also examine these statements in relationship to how we feel in our body.

Why do we have these preferences? Why do we feel better in one season and not another.

The answer is "frequency." If everything is energy, the energy in nature in the different seasons has a different effect on our body. It is all a matter of relationship. We may feel more balanced because we naturally connect to the vibration or frequency of a season. We usually don’t think about it this way. We forget that we are nature too.

Why do some of us have allergies in different seasons? It is the relationship between our body and the season’s energy.

We call them seasonal allergies. Pollen usually gets the blame. We anticipate the coming season with dread because the pollen is going to get us. Aren’t the trees and other plants simply producing pollen in accordance to the season and it’s energy? One might say pollen is an expression of the seasonal energy.

It stands to reason if we are not aligned with the seasonal energy, our bodies will demonstrate the difference as some sort of event, such as a cough or runny nose, as means to tell us it is time to make a change. These symptoms are akin to an interference pattern when two energy waves interact showing us they are not in alignment. Our bodies are telling us it is time to balance ourselves and realign ourselves with nature.

The Autumnal Equinox is offering us an opportunity to "balance" for free .

To take advantage of this free energy courtesy of our solar system, do a "Personal Energy Audit."

Take a quick inventory of your life. Where are your energy leaks? Where might you increase your energy?

Do you get enough sleep? What if you ate just a little bit less? Do you drink iced beverages? Do you wear enough clothing to stay warm? Do you take breaks when working, even at home? Do you give, and give, and give to your family and friends? Where might you slow down a bit?

If you can begin to give yourself just a bit more rest and do a bit less, you will be surprised at how much better you may begin to feel.

Give it a try before (and after) September 23rd. Let nature help you to feel better. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Jefferson Breland is a board-certified acupuncturists licensed in Pennsylvania and Maryland with offices in Gettysburg and Towson, respectively.
He can be reached at 410-336-5876.