Fall Equinox: Abundance, Gratitude, and Giving in Times of Trouble

At the Autumn Equinox, the Earth pauses. Day and night meet as equals, and for a brief moment, balance reigns. This turning point in the year invites us to do the same: to pause, reflect, and ask ourselves what we've gathered and what we're ready to give.

And I know that for many of us, finding balance, or even harmony, feels particularly challenging right now. The world feels heavy with uncertainty and fear. You may be wondering how to think about abundance and offering when your own reserves are depleted, when the news leaves you anxious, when caring for others has left you running on empty.

And yet, Fall Equinox is the season of harvest, not just of crops, but of experiences, lessons, and transformations. It's a time to honor abundance and to consider how that abundance might overflow into the lives of others. Sometimes we've harvested resilience, the ability to keep showing up, or simply having survived. These too are offerings.

What have you cultivated this year, emotionally, spiritually, creatively, that is now ripe for sharing?

This reflection is not about productivity or achievement. It's about presence. In a world that demands speed and performance, presence is radical. In times of chaos, presence becomes even more radical and necessary. It's about noticing what has grown in the quiet corners of your life. It might feel like weeds. It might not feel like ripening grain. Maybe it's a deeper sense of compassion. Maybe it's a renewed connection to nature. Maybe it's a story you've carried that's ready to be told. Whatever it is, this is the moment to hold it up and ask: What do I offer back to my community, to the Earth, to the future?

We often think of giving as an act of generosity, but it's also an act of trust. To offer something of ourselves is to believe that it might matter. And it does. Even the smallest offering: a kind word, a moment of listening, a gesture of care, can ripple outward in ways we may never see.

As you reflect, consider the balance, the harmony in your own life. Have you made space for both action and rest? For both giving and receiving? For both joy and sorrow? Balance is not a static state: it's a dance. Harmony requires attention, adjustment, and sometimes surrender. The equinox reminds us that this kind of balance is possible, even if fleeting. It's something to turn toward, not something to perfect.

Think back over the past year. What have you been harvesting? What moments stand out as meaningful, transformative, or tender? These are the fruits of your inner garden, worthy of celebration.

Now ask yourself: What of this am I ready to share? What part of your harvest is meant not just for you, but for others? This could be a skill, a story, a practice, or simply your presence. It could be something tangible or something intangible. The important thing is that it comes from a place of authenticity and your own abundance.

Sometimes offering the overflow means letting go. Just as trees release their leaves, we too are invited to release what no longer serves us. What habits, fears, or narratives are you ready to plow under? Maybe releasing the compulsion to recite all the world's troubles: that's a form of letting go that creates space for healing action. What can be composted into wisdom, clarity, or space for new growth?

Letting go is not always easy. It can feel like loss. But it's also a gift. It creates space for what's next. It honors the cycle of life, where endings make way for beginnings. In this season, letting go is an offering in itself.

As you sit with these questions, allow yourself to feel into them. Let them be seeds planted in the soil of your awareness. They may sprout now or later, slowly or suddenly. Trust the timing.

Here are some questions:

What spiritual gift or soul-legacy do I feel ready to offer?

What have I harvested this year, emotionally, spiritually, creatively?

How do I share my abundance with others?

You don't need to have all the answers. You don't even really need to have one answer. You only need to be willing to ask, to listen, to notice.

I'm also inviting you to honor the gifts of others. Just as you consider your own offerings, recognize what others have shared with you: a friend's support, a stranger's kindness, a teacher's wisdom, a moment of beauty in nature. These are part of the harvest too.

Gratitude is another form of offering. When we express thanks, we affirm the value of what we've received. We complete the circle. We become part of the flow.

And if you feel like you have little to offer right now, know that your presence is enough. Your willingness to reflect is enough. There is no minimum requirement for being part of the harvest. You belong here.

As we move deeper into autumn, let this reflection sit with you. Let it guide your choices, your interactions, your celebrations. Let it remind you that you are part of a larger rhythm: a rhythm of gathering, giving, releasing, and renewing.

You are the harvest. You are the offering. You are the overflow.

Blessed be this season of balance. Blessed be the gifts you carry. Blessed be the ways you choose to share them.

Mount Hood sunset, photo by Amy Beltaine

Rooted in Harvest, Open to Overflow

A Guided Meditation for Fall Equinox, 2025

Everything offered in this grounding is an invitation. Please engage in whatever way feels right to you. You are the sacred steward of your own experience:

Let's begin by arriving. Here. Now. With whatever this moment brings.

Feel the contact between your body and what holds you: the floor beneath your feet, the chair beneath your hips, the air brushing your skin.

If your body feels distant today, bring awareness to your surroundings: the quality of light, the shapes of shadow, the sounds of breath or birdsong or silence.

Now, shift your attention to the quiet ways your body is alive. Notice your heartbeat's rhythm, its persistence. Feel the breath moving in and out as presence itself. Sense the weight of your limbs, the warmth of your skin, the stillness or stirrings within.

Let your awareness settle there. You are already enough. You are already here.

Let yourself be held: by gravity, by the Earth, by the moment. Let yourself be rooted: like a tree in late summer, drawing strength from deep soil, preparing to release what has fulfilled its purpose.

Now, gently notice what's present in your body. Warmth or coolness. Tension or ease. Emotion or emptiness. Simply offer it your attention.

If anything feels overwhelming, return to your anchor: the breath, the heartbeat, the ground beneath you.

The now is enough.

In this grounded presence, I invite a question: What have you gathered this year that is ready to be shared? What you've grown through living. What you've learned through experience.

Perhaps it's wisdom earned through difficulty. Perhaps it's a joy that surprised you. Perhaps it's a story, a skill, a truth, a tenderness.

Let it rise gently in your awareness. Simply notice what wants to be offered.

Now, another question: What are you ready to release? What has served its purpose? What can be composted into wisdom?

Maybe it's a habit, a fear, a role, a story you've outgrown. Let it fall like a leaf in autumn: returned to the Earth with gratitude.

You are part of the cycle. You are part of the harvest. You are part of the offering.

Feel the balance: between holding and releasing, between gathering and giving, between being and becoming.

You are woven into the season. You are the season. You are the turning. You are the overflow.

Come back now to this moment. To the sensation of your feet or seat. To your breath. To your body. To this place. To this now.

You are here. You are rooted. You are enough.

When you're ready, begin to reawaken gently. Wiggle your fingers. Roll your shoulders. Notice the space around you. Take in a sound, a color, a presence.

Let this grounded awareness guide you.

Blessed be.

Beloved, you are whole, holy, and worthy,

Rev. Amy

This Spiritual Feast series is ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. You may freely reprint any blog post, website, or print resource. Simply include the following attribution, and if you print online, make the link at the end live.

Article ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. This article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources are available at www.AmyBeltaine.info

What Bessel van der Kolk Got Wrong: A Spiritual Companion’s Reflection on Trauma

The Score We Keep

Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score has become a sacred text in trauma discourse. It’s cited in therapy rooms, yoga studios, and spiritual circles alike. And yet, as spiritual companions, we must ask: what score are we keeping, and whose story does it serve?

This post is not a dismissal of van der Kolk’s contributions, but a curious unearthing of what lies beneath the surface: what he missed, what he himself has moved beyond, and how we, as spiritual companions, can hold trauma in ways that honor the soul’s journey toward wholeness. 

I want to add a different term for "trauma". The term 'spiritual imbalance' has been used in some indigenous cultures to refer to the experience van der Kolk terms 'trauma'. I find it interesting to use that phrase as a way to expand how I think, and to remove the overused (and let's face it) buzzword: trauma. When we speak of spiritual imbalance, we shift from a clinical framework that often focuses on damage and pathology to one that suggests the possibility of restoration and realignment. This language invites us to consider not just what has been broken, but what sacred equilibrium might be recovered. It acknowledges that our deepest wounds often occur at the level of spirit and meaning, disrupting our connection to ourselves, our communities, and our sense of place in the larger web of existence. The word 'imbalance' itself suggests that what has been thrown off-kilter can, with proper tending, be brought back into harmony.

I know there are other ways to talk about the ways life experiences continue to echo and affect us long afterward. I encourage you to find other phrases and descriptions as a way to expand how we live with, how we heal, and how we thrive.

Each reframing also honors the wisdom of cultures that understand healing as a restoration of spiritual wholeness rather than simply the absence of symptoms.

Neuroscience of PTSD. ScienceWorks Behavioural Healthcare. Kiesa Kelly

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie: A Reconsideration of Unearthing

Van der Kolk’s model assumes that trauma must be excavated, faced, and reprocessed. This is the foundation of many trauma therapies: exposure, EMDR, somatic experiencing. But what if healing doesn’t always require digging?

Some practitioners and scholars argue that focusing on health, resilience, and present-moment safety can be just as, if not more, effective than revisiting pain:

• Existential and Philosophical Perspectives
  Trauma theorist B. T. Reuther suggests that over-focusing on trauma can hinder a full understanding of human experience. Instead, integrating spiritual imbalance into a broader existential framework allows for healing through meaning-making and embodiment.

• Pluralistic Counseling Psychology
  Catherine Athanasiadou-Lewis critiques the dominance of trauma-focused cognitive behavioral models. She advocates for eclectic and psychodynamic approaches that honor the complexity of the psyche and allow for healing without direct confrontation.

• Ethical Concerns
  Anne Rothe’s critique of postmodern trauma theory warns against turning "trauma" into a sacred object that must be unearthed and venerated. She calls this “irresponsible nonsense,” arguing that such models can confuse victimhood, retraumatize listeners, and obscure ethical clarity.

Archeological Dig. Designed by Wannapik

The Spiritual Lens: Spiritual Imbalance as Sacred Threshold

In spiritual companionship, spiritual imbalance is not pathology. What can it be if we apply a spiritual or wholeness lens?

• Wholeness Over Wounding
  Van der Kolk’s model often implies that spiritual imbalance leaves us permanently broken. But spiritual traditions teach that wounds are portals. As Jalalaldin  Mohammed Rumi says, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” We must move from scorekeeping to soul-tending.

• Embodiment Without Fixation
  While van der Kolk emphasizes body-based therapies, he sometimes treats the body as a battleground. In contrast, spiritual practice invites us to inhabit the body as a temple. We are not attempting to fix something broken. We show up to listen. Breathwork, dreamwork, and movement are not cures; they are conversations.

• Relational Holding
  Trauma healing is not a solo endeavor. Companions hold space. We do not diagnose. We witness. We do not ask, “What happened to you?” but “What is seeking to be born through this pain?”

DBT for Trauma. ScienceWorks Behavioral Healthcare. Kiesa Kelly

For the Companion: How We Hold What Hurts

As spiritual companions, we are called to:

• Resist reduction: Avoid reducing spiritual imbalance to neurobiology or symptomology. Honor its mystery, its mythic dimension.
• Center the margins: Hold stories that dominant narratives erase. Listen for the voices beneath the score.
• Practice presence: Healing is not accomplished through pure technique. It requires presence. It is the sacred act of sitting beside someone in their becoming.

Beyond the Score

Van der Kolk gave us language for trauma. But language is not the whole story. The soul speaks in symbols, silence, and sacred rupture. As companions, we travel with questions, not answers. We travel with awe.

The body may keep the score, but the spirit keeps the song.

Beloved, you are whole, holy and worthy,

Rev. Amy
Companioning soul-weary change-makers becoming rooted, aligned and alive again.

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For Further Exploration

• van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score – A foundational text in trauma discourse, exploring how trauma reshapes the body and brain.

  Scheeringa, Michael. The Body Does Not Keep the Score – A critical review of van der Kolk’s claims, challenging the scientific basis of trauma narratives.

  Rothe, Anne. “Irresponsible Nonsense: An Epistemological and Ethical Critique of Postmodern Trauma Theory” – A sharp critique of trauma theory’s cultural elevation and ethical implications.

  AlAmmar, Layla. “This Book is Trash” – A literary trauma scholar’s blunt critique of van der Kolk’s erasure of systemic and marginalized trauma.

  Reuther, B. T. “Philosophical and Existential Perspectives on Trauma” – Offers a broader framework for understanding trauma through meaning-making and embodiment.

  Athanasiadou-Lewis, Catherine. “A Critical Evaluation of the Conceptual Model and Empirical Evidence for PTSD Treatments” – Advocates for pluralistic approaches beyond trauma-focused CBT.

See Also on This Blog

• Body Grief - Clarifies the difference between trauma and body-related losses. Discusses spiritual companioning with explorers who have grief related to their bodies. 
  https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2026/03/body-grief-when-body-itself-is-loss.html 

• Trauma Integration in Spiritual Tending – Offers grounded approaches to accompanying seekers who carry trauma, with attention to scope of practice, spiritual safety, body-based practices, and the sacredness of the healing journey.

• Bearing Witness to Moral Injury – Explores how spiritual companions can support those wrestling with ethical pain and inner conflict.

• Introduction to Trauma-Informed Spiritual Tending – Outlines key principles of trauma-aware companioning and how they support safety, agency, and healing.

• Supporting Souls in Shadows: Spiritual Direction and Depression – Offers insights for accompanying seekers through times of grief, depression, and spiritual dryness.

• Traveling with Despair: Consent, Companionship & the Sacred – Explores how spiritual companions can meet seekers in despair with consent-based care, avoiding rescue impulses. Draws on mysticism, trauma wisdom, and the sacredness of shadowed journeys.

This Heart of Sacred Tending series is ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. You may freely reprint any blog post, website, or print resource. Simply include the following attribution, and if you print online, make the link at the end live:

Article ©2025 Amy Beltaine, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. This article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources, are available at www.AmyBeltaine.info