Dusk - Threshold

September 22, 2026

Dear Friend,

Welcome to Autumn.

We have arrived at the Equinox, the threshold between summer and fall. The long, bright days of summer are beginning to give way to the darker half of the year. And so it feels fitting that our first teacher for this new season is Dusk, that beautiful threshold we pass through every day as daylight gives way to night.

There is a special kind of beauty in the world at dusk. The light softens. Colors change. The edges of things become less distinct. Birds make their last calls of the day. Lights begin appearing in windows. For a little while, we are no longer quite in the day, but we haven't fully entered the night. Dusk is a threshold.

And the Autumn Equinox is a threshold, too. The word equinox comes from words meaning “equal night.” Around the Equinox, day and night come into near balance. From here, in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights will continue to lengthen as we move toward winter. For one brief moment, light and darkness meet at the doorway.

I love that the Earth gives us these places. We spend so much of our lives wanting to know exactly where we are going. We like beginnings and endings. We like clarity. We like knowing that one chapter has closed and another has begun. But life doesn't always happen that way.

Sometimes we have left one version of our lives without knowing what the next version will look like. Something that once fit us doesn't anymore, but we don't yet know what will take its place. We can feel that we are changing long before we have words for who we are becoming. The children grow up. A relationship changes. A career that once made sense no longer does. A dream begins tugging at us before we know how to make it real. We find ourselves with one foot in what was and one foot in what will be.

We are living in a threshold time collectively, too. The world is changing rapidly. Technology is changing how we work, create, and communicate. Our climate is changing. Political and social structures are shifting. Many of the old ways of doing things no longer work for many of us, and we haven't yet determined what the new ways will be. This is part of why this time can feel so unsettling. We keep looking for solid ground while standing in a place that is, by its very nature, in between.

But the Earth reminds us that the threshold is not a mistake. Every evening there is dusk, and every year there is an Autumn and Spring Equinox. Nature has places between, moments when what was is receding and what will be has not yet taken form. And those places have their own kind of beauty.

Dusk doesn't need to become night more quickly, and it doesn't cling to the daylight that is disappearing. It simply becomes what it is: a brief, beautiful meeting place between the two. What would happen if we allowed ourselves the same grace? What if we didn't need to have the next chapter figured out? What if, instead of rushing through the threshold, we learned how to stand in it?

An Equinox Practice

Sometime this week, take your journal outside at dusk. Find a comfortable place to sit and watch the light change. Leave your phone inside if you can. Notice the sky, the temperature of the air, and the sounds around you as the creatures of the day settle and the creatures of the night begin to stir. See if you can notice that strange, beautiful moment when you can't quite say whether it is still day or already night.

Then open your journal and write this question at the top of a fresh page:

What threshold am I standing at right now?

And write. You don't need to decide what you're leaving behind or make a plan for what comes next. You don't need to turn this into another thing to figure out. Just notice where you are. There will be time for the next step.

For now, stand at the threshold and look around. There is beauty here, too.

Love,
Carrie