When the Tide Goes Out: A Dream, the Fall Equinox, and Learning to Trust What Comes Next

Sometimes a message arrives before we’re ready to understand it.

A while ago, I had an incredibly vivid dream. I wrote about it afterward, intending to share it here, but for whatever reason, I never did.

Then came the Fall Equinox.

Tonight, I pulled out my very first tarot deck, the DruidCraft Tarot—a deck I hadn’t worked with in years. My usual decks simply didn’t feel right. Instead, this old deck suddenly appeared in my mind’s eye.

So I found it, dusted it off, cleared it, welcomed it back…and did my Fall Equinox reading.

The cards were:

Harvest — Eight of Swords
Release — Queen of Wands
Balance — Wheel of Fortune
Shadow — Death

As I sat with the reading, something clicked…I had heard this story before…My dream had already told it to me.

The Dream

In the dream, I was hosting a gathering.

It wasn’t a retreat or anything particularly formal. Just a gathering of people. One person was quietly observing and critiquing different aspects of it—not unkindly, but thoughtfully.

The gathering itself seemed divided in half. Half of the people were neat and tidy. The other half were surrounded by clutter.

Later, I left with two other people to go for a walk. We were going to head right along a cobblestone street, but I suggested going left instead. I wanted to see the harbor.

It was dusk. We began jogging toward it and somehow turned the journey into a playful race. However, before running, I did something rather strange.

I threw away a small bag of human waste.

Yes. Really. When I woke up, I even had to question that. Dreams certainly aren’t subtle sometimes.

When we reached the harbor, I leapt over a memorial and stopped myself just before landing in the water. I reached back toward the memorial to steady myself. Then I looked out. The tide had gone out.

Where water would normally be, pieces of land had appeared. There were places we could walk that hadn’t been visible before. Standing on one of those little islands was a mountain goat.

This mountain goat is completely out of place. Then other two people encouraged me to jump across. I sat on the memorial and prepared myself to leap. However, before I could make the jump on my own, the memorial swung me outward.

Suddenly I was in deep, choppy water. I was no longer deciding where I was going. I was simply holding on.

Right at that moment my alarm woke me.

Then Came the Equinox

The Fall Equinox is a threshold.

Light and darkness meet in balance, and from here the days begin their gradual movement toward greater darkness.

It is a season of harvest, gratitude, release and transition.

Which makes tonight’s reading—and that old dream—feel particularly connected.

Harvest: Eight of Swords

The Eight of Swords asks us to notice the places where our perception has become its own kind of boundary.

Where have I convinced myself there are fewer choices than there actually are?

That question immediately brings me back to the harbor.

When the tide went out, paths appeared.

They had always been there.

I simply couldn’t see them while they were covered by water.

Maybe that is part of harvesting wisdom: realizing that something we once believed was impossible may simply have been invisible from where we were standing.

Release: Queen of Wands

This card surprised me in the position of Release.

The Queen of Wands is powerful, independent, capable and fiery.

Maybe perhaps releasing her doesn’t mean extinguishing that fire.

Perhaps it means releasing the belief that strength requires us to carry everything ourselves.

Suddenly my ridiculous little poop bag in the dream doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous.

Before I could run toward the harbor, I threw something away. Something my body had already processed. Something that had served its purpose and no longer belonged inside me.

There are old identities, expectations and responsibilities that can become the energetic equivalent of carrying around a bag of something we’ve already finished with.

The Equinox asks: What am I still carrying simply because I’ve become accustomed to carrying it?

Balance: Wheel of Fortune

Of all four cards, this one may connect most beautifully with the dream.

The Wheel turns.

The tide moves.

Seasons change.

None of them ask our permission first.

In the dream, I thought I was preparing to make a leap.

I believed I was going to choose the moment.

Instead, something moved beneath me and suddenly I was somewhere entirely different.

That’s uncomfortable.

It’s also life.

Balance doesn’t necessarily mean making everything stop moving.

Sometimes balance means learning how to move with what is changing.

The tide comes in.

The tide goes out.

The Wheel turns.

We adapt.

Shadow: Death

Death is one of tarot’s great threshold cards.

It doesn’t necessarily speak of literal death. It speaks of endings, transformation and the shedding of something whose cycle has been completed.

There I was in the dream, standing beside a memorial.

A monument to what came before.

I didn’t destroy it.

I didn’t ignore it.

I touched it.

I used it to steady myself.

Then I attempted to move beyond it.

That feels very different from trying to erase the past.

There are things we are meant to honor without continuing to live inside them.

Perhaps that’s one of the quieter lessons of Death.

Honor what was.
Let it change you.
Still allow yourself to move forward.

Then There’s the Mountain Goat

I still love this part of the dream.

A mountain goat standing in the middle of a harbor at low tide makes absolutely no logical sense.

Symbolically, it feels perfect.

Mountain goats are built for precarious terrain.

They find footing in places that look impossible.

Perhaps that’s why it appeared exactly where it didn’t belong.

Sometimes we’re asked to navigate terrain we never expected to encounter.

We don’t need to have walked that exact path before.

We need to trust the strength we’ve already developed.

When the Tide Goes Out

Looking at the dream through tonight’s Fall Equinox reading, I don’t think the message is simply, “Take the leap.”

It’s subtler than that.

Notice what has been revealed.

Release what has already served its purpose.

Honor the person you have been without requiring her to remain who you are becoming.

Trust the turning of the Wheel.

Understand that transformation doesn’t always happen according to our carefully chosen timing.

Sometimes we leap.

Sometimes the ground moves beneath us.

Sometimes we unexpectedly find ourselves in deep water, wondering what on earth just happened.

Here’s the part of the dream I keep returning to:

I was still holding on.

The dream didn’t end with me disappearing beneath the water.

It ended in the middle of the transition.

Maybe that’s where many of us find ourselves during an Equinox.

Not entirely standing on the old shore.

Not yet safely planted on the new one.

Somewhere in between.

Perhaps we don’t always need to know exactly where we’ll land.

Perhaps, for this season, it’s enough to release what is finished, notice the paths being revealed, and trust ourselves to navigate whatever comes next.

The tide will change again.

The Wheel will turn again.

Somewhere in the strangest possible place, there may even be a mountain goat reminding us that we are far more sure-footed than we think.

Fall Equinox Reflection

As we move into this new season, consider:

What have you harvested from the season behind you?

What are you carrying that has already served its purpose?

What path is becoming visible now that wasn’t visible before?

Where might life be asking you to trust the movement instead of trying to control the landing?

Maybe the invitation isn’t to know exactly what comes next.

Maybe it’s simply to recognize when the tide has gone out…and look at what’s been waiting underneath.