At Autumn Equinox the Sun sinks below the celestial equator and it’s as though the Northern Hemisphere surrenders the light of Summer to the season of gathering darkness. In esoteric traditions, this is the time when the inmost soul of the human being must stay awake, to battle the creature of the dark known throughout the ages as the dragon.
It’s not so easy to believe in things like ‘dragons’ in our lit-up world, but if we cast ourselves back in time to the ages before electric light, when there were large parts of the world that were still undiscovered, then it’s easy to understand how people could believe that the world was haunted by terrible beasts, lurking just out of sight.
When the sunlight lessened in the Fall, then the sense of impending doom would increase. So it was a great comfort at this point in the year to celebrate the festival of the dragon slayer, known to Christianity as the mighty Archangel Michael.
In the Book of Revelation, Michael is described with his host of angels fighting and defeating the dragon.
And this week, we can imagine Michael’s host as the planets and stars all lined up in the morning sky as though they are the heralds of light, come to slay demons in whatever form they may take.
If you look East an hour before sunrise this week, you will see the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, flanked by the star Regulus, at the heart of the lion. Described another way, this can be seen as love, courage, trust, and compassion, heralding the dawn and empowering the human soul, even though we’ve entered the season of greater darkness, which is the domain of the dragon.
Such a set up brings to mind the words of the late 19th century writer GK Chesterton (1874-1936) who wrote that "Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten."