The seasonal wheel turns to the spring equinox.
Day and night,
Dark and light,
Are equal in length.
Sister and mirror to the autumn,
It is the outward unfurling of the double spiral.
Nature invites us to walk along her labyrinthine path towards longer warmer days.
Our bodies feel the heavy cloak of winter gently slide from our shoulders.
Whatever age we are,
Our spirits feel young again.
On the mandala map of earth wisdom,
Spring equinox corresponds to the direction of east,
The element of air,
And to the life stage of adolescence.
It is the urgency of life to blossom and virgin.
All of nature is in the realm of pure potential and potency.
It is the time,
Just before,
Something is about to happen.
The trees wait for their leaves like excited debutantes.
Their hard resting buds are sticky and pliant again.
Early morning birdsong bjors them.
Wood pigeons give them calming,
Somatic sound baths to get them ready.
Like autumn,
The spring equinox is a transitional time and transitions are often challenging.
As the winds of change sweep through the landscape and the in-scapes of our psyches,
The two weeks either side can be turbulent.
We are likely to experience ups and downs and buffeting.
It can be helpful to give the art of balance the credit it deserves,
To acknowledge inside our actual experience that establishing tranquility and blue sky mind amidst surging change is not always easy.
It is not always a still,
Serene state,
But more often a fluctuating,
Dynamic one that we encounter.
It is therefore wisdom to pause when we can.
Take some long,
Deep,
Slow breaths in and out.
Resist urgency.
Treat ourselves to time curled up and purring in the lap of equilibrium,
In a sunny spot,
Indoors or outside,
With our notebook or journal close by for any final flashes of inspiration or handy tidbits of knowledge.
So that we can buff up our sparkle,
Transition with grace,
Ask ourselves some reflective questions.
What has gestated and slow cooked in the earth oven of winter?
What was born in the dark soul of our long winter's nights?
What have we brought forward with us?
What did we envision for ourselves in the seed and belly of in bulk?
What is now ready to become a concrete plan with tangible steps,
Tiny tickable tasks and many deadlines?
Endorphins are released when an intention is broken down into small parts that can be completed piece by piece,
Rather than left as something amorphous that feels too large,
Too unwieldy and endlessly open-ended.
No vision ever reaches full manifestation or finds itself on the shores of reality,
Exactly as we dreamed it in the crucible of our imagination.
But like a well-made and tendered fire with patience and understanding,
It can come close.
It can have a good shape and heart to it.
What finds strength in the compulsory balancing time of spring equinox?
What we choose to pluck out and pin on our vision boards will determine the course of the rest of our year.
Another challenge that can accompany the spring equinox is a feeling of cabin fever.
However well we have inhabited and paced ourselves through the winter months,
What was nurturing and deeply restful then can now feel oppressive,
As if winter is hammering its message home a little too heavy-handedly.
Jittery with plans held back,
We strain against inertia.
We long for fresh laced with spontaneity.
But as the winds lessen and the sunshine lingers for longer,
A feeling of spring gaining ground at last arrives.
The days start to soften off,
Like a warm clutch of eggs piled on top of each other,
Like smooth pebbles.
The call to stride out,
Breathe deeper and faster becomes overwhelming.
This is spring as maiden warrior,
Lean,
Strong,
Determined and courageous,
Whose name is enthusiasm,
Whose name is ecstasy.
Now is the time for us to stride back out into the world with certainty,
Clarity of direction and purpose.
Now is the time to ready ourselves to rise in love and fill the cup,
The holy grail which is ourselves to overflowing.
It is the time to place on our altars or windowsills an egg painted red for the ancient colour of life and green for the new growth snaking into being.
Ecstatic of heart again,
We are like haiku writers trying to contain elation in just three lines.
Volumes of light flood the air and we are literally sprung into a sense of gratitude.
We find a small patch of earth in the sunshine to join the forgent daffodils in a dance of atavistic joy.
We can hear birdsong from every room in the house,
Their jubilant welcome back into the heart of life.
We perform our rituals of spring cleaning,
Turn out cupboards and drawers,
Clothes swap,
Wash winter grime and tree resin from our windows.
Dig out our seeds from last year and order the new ones we need.
Plan what we will grow to include bee and insect-friendly flowers,
Throw off sluggishness,
Tonify our livers with herbs and weeds now shyly appearing on our doorsteps and at the sides of the lanes where we walk.
Exactly where and what we need.
Nettles as an overall tonic,
Dandelion leaves,
Cleavers sometimes called goose grass,
Chickweed and wild garlic in the woods.
Knowing that once estra's egg cracks,
New life will tumble out with unstoppable momentum.
We initiate 40 days and 40 nights to deliberately raise our energy and set our stage for regeneration.
Recognise that this is not just a creaking turn of the great seasonal wheel pulled by sun and moon,
But rebirth all over again.
How deeply it sits inside our need for it.
