October is a month of restoring balance. September was all about uncovering things, buried facets of old patterns, but this month you’ll be striving to maintain order and find balance again in what feels yet again to be a very unbalanced world. For many of you, this process will be easy, facile, and unthinking, but more of you will likely react to the flailing efforts of those around you and strive ever harder to maintain your own balance while people around you are plummeting from their tightropes.

Let’s examine this tightrope analogy a moment. Most of you regard the concept of balance as being poised atop a precarious perch, much like a tightrope, and that within this confinement you must walk your path, remaining ever vigilant lest you plummet to your undoing below. But what if … instead of falling, you would fly? And what if in this flying you find new heights, new lovely vistas, as well as new challenges to surmount? We pose this question because we see that the majority of you regard balance as a precious commodity, one that allows you to remain safe within, again, the confines of your path as you determine it to be. But we challenge this notion, and instead invite you to see balance as a limitation. As a means to control yourself and your environment. As a narrowing of our own choices. As … unnecessary.

So while on the one hand you’ll likely be striving FOR balance this month, attempting to find a foothold or at least a toehold on reality as you perceive it, we invite you instead to let go.

Fly.

Let’s try this with a brief visualization:

Imagine you are, indeed, walking a tightrope. It stretches between two impossibly high skyscrapers. You stand at one edge, ready to walk, and peer down into the clouds below you. The other end of the tightrope is, as you know, attached to the building at the other side, but it too is obscured by clouds. You only know that you are to set foot on the rope and walk forward. There is no backward — not today.

And so you set foot on the rope, slightly slick with moisture from the clouds. You are afraid of slipping, of falling, yet you walk anyway. You want to. You place one foot and then the next, feeling your weight make the rope bounce a little. You stand there, one foot forward and one back, beginning to enjoy the buoyancy of the rope. And then you begin to walk again, fearing the slipperiness and the fact that you can only see a step or two ahead of you a little less now.

And then the unthinkable happens. Your foot slips on the slick wet rope. You fall into the mist. You scream but there is no sound.

And then you find yourself singing. Singing with joy, and with the sense of unbridled freedom. You are flying! You have flown before in dreams, but this is different, this is real! You fly over buildings and mountains and treetops, knowing you can land anywhere you wish to. And you see a place now, a gentle rolling hilltop with an inviting grove of trees all around. You land in the clearing. These are your trees. You have known them before. They welcome you as friends. You are there to rest. You’ll fly elsewhere soon, when you are ready to.

Do you see how simple this is? Try this visualization a few times during the month. It will help you with your sense of freedom about the choices you are making, and it will allow you to enjoy even the times of feeling unbalanced ever the more.

Going wider into the circle around you, we mentioned briefly that it is likely you will feel affected by the unbalance of those around you. (Do you now understand how they, too, may be flying instead of falling?) It is true that as a whole, fears mount this month over coming social changes, especially some severe economic changes around the world. On a personal level, letting go — as best you can — the need to remain balanced within this will help you. The rope you are on is swinging. Becoming accustomed to that feeling, even enjoying it, will help.

In addition to preparations for economic change, there will also likely be big “mood swings” politically in the US this month. Things that seemed difficult (health care reform, most notably) will become easy. Things that seemed to flow well could well become difficult. One big possibility is a flareup this month in Afghanistan.

Keep in mind that striving for balance is not the same as attaining it. Keep in mind as well that “balance” can also mean stagnation. Striving instead for the ability to flow with change is likely not only an easier task but also one that will serve you well in the future.