The autumn equinox strikes again!

In 2022, I posted about some minor, rather disconcerting but also quite amusing, incidents at the time of the autumn equinox that involved two rather weird women I encountered when I went out shopping while feeling under the weather.

In 2023, I described a few more small incidents that happened at the same time of year. I also said this:

“It is possible that creating last year's article had the effect of reducing the negative effects of this year's autumn equinox; it will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens this time next year.”

For the next two years, I didn't go out much or make any special journeys around this key time. I stayed in and did a lot of work online instead.

This year, I decided to go out and see what, if anything, unusual happened. I hoped that this time, awareness, processing the previous happenings, getting it all down in writing and learning from experience would help me to get ahead of the game and prevent any more unwelcome incidents. 

How wrong I was! 

Once more, there were some minor incidents, and they happened over several days.

Two days before the autumn equinox, I made a special bus journey to revisit a place with rather sad associations from the past. I had been back there twice before in recent years, but this time I got confused and couldn't remember which way to go. I decided to go home, check the map and try again some other time. (I haven't got a smartphone.)

When I was on the bus going home, I suddenly remembered where the road I wanted to visit was and that I had brought a little map with me just in case!

I had waited a long time for a bus, then I decided to cut my losses and get a different bus from another stop – where I also had to wait a long time. An elderly gentleman got on and caused a long delay because he didn't seem to know exactly where he was or where he wanted to go! Some of the passengers tried to help: they asked him questions and told him where various places he mentioned were.

When I got home, I found that I couldn't connect to the Internet! I can't remember when this last happened. After one and a half very stressful hours, the problem fixed itself.

More minor incidents at the autumn equinox

Last year, I posted about some incidents at the time of the autumn equinox. They involved two rather weird women I encountered when I went out shopping while feeling under the weather. 

Once again, it is the time of year when seasonal depression may strike.

Once again, it is the time when strangers may behave strangely! 

I have a little more of the same to report. The recent incidents, the first since last year's equinox, were minor, even more so than they were last time around. They may hardly seem worth mentioning, but getting these things down in writing is good practice and may have good results. 

Last year, one of my shopping trips was a waste of time; my recent long bus trip to a big new branch of a store I like and a street market was also fruitless: I found that the store was self-checkout only, which for me is a deal-breaker, and the market was run down and didn't have many stalls.

The buses were packed on the journey out; a woman with a shopping bag with 'Jesus' on it got on, and kept saying things such as “May the Lord bless you” and “Jesus loves you” to someone who offered her a seat. She also made some random religious remarks. Someone who sat next to me seemed a little over-friendly, but I just replied pleasantly to her enthusiastic remarks.

I was a little down because of the time of year; the disappointing outcome of my journey made me feel slightly worse, so I decided to cut my losses and go home. I had a long wait for a bus; during this time a man at the bus stop kept talking loudly to himself, saying the same thing over and over again. I was a bit wary as he seemed rather angry, but he was probably harmless. He eventually got on a bus that came before mine did. 

I had to change buses, and while I was waiting a woman started to talk about my shopping bag and how it was not set up correctly. She even moved a flap to where it could reach some velcro. This was an improvement, and rather than feeling threatened or offended I thanked her for her help.

That was the end of this year's incidents. 

Two incidents at the equinox

The article about depression at the autumn equinox describes how Charlotte Brontë suffered badly for a month to six weeks at this time of year. 

I have been feeing under the weather for around two weeks myself. It is worse than it has been in recent years, but nothing like as bad as it got in the distant past. 

While it helps to know that certain unseen influences may be at work, this doesn't stop the feelings of malaise, stagnation, despondency and being unprotected; it doesn't stop approaches from strangers who make me feel uncomfortable either. 

I experienced two such incidents when I went out shopping recently.

The first one happened when I visited a shopping centre some way from where I live. I have been there many times in the past, but I felt confused when I came out of the station. I made a false start or two, then set off down what I soon realised was the wrong road. As I walked past some tables outside a café, a rather weird and witchy older woman with straggly grey hair who was sitting there called out loudly, eagerly and triumphantly, “Hello darling” as if she knew me! 

I am wondering whether I fell into her psychic trap or answered her call and was drawn to that place because my defences were low at the time. The shopping expedition was not a success: the store I planned to visit had closed down and I came home with nothing.

The second incident happened when I was standing in a queue at a big supermarket. Someone just behind me started to comment in an over-friendly manner on the items I had selected; I looked round cautiously and saw that it was a rather weird and witchy older woman with straggly grey hair! The woman on the till was very slow and there were several people waiting in front of me, so I was a captive audience. I just smiled vaguely while she kept talking.  She also said loudly, “Hello darling” to the woman on the till! It was definitely not the same person though.

I am wondering what drew her to my queue and not one of the others. 

Unseen influences: seasonal depression and the autumn equinox

Depression at this time of year is common. I think that there is more to it than the feeling that autumn is here, winter is on the horizon and another year of our lives will soon be gone forever.

The occultist Dion Fortune said that one is on or off one’s contacts: they all break automatically at the equinoxes. That would explain a lot. I think of it in different terms - I would say that one’s personal firewall drops at this time of year and in the spring - but the symptoms are the same.

Charlotte Brontë had a lifelong sensibility to equinoctial changes. She wrote in a letter to Mrs Gaskell that the effects lasted approximately one month to six weeks around both equinoxes; sometimes she got severe headaches, sometimes she had to endure the feeling of being ground down to the dust with deep dejection of spirits.

Feeling tearful and empty and pessimistic about the future is to be expected. The best way to deal with it is to be prepared and ride it out.  Autumn especially is a time for staying in and reading or watching DVDs: children’s fantasy fiction and films are very suitable for this purpose. This is what I do, and it does help.

We may not feel like going out, but I have found that going on expeditions to see the beautiful autumn leaves helps to improve my mood. Sitting quietly near trees and water raises my spirits too. 

The painful feelings will recede – until another equinox comes round again.