spring equinox
Spring Equinox: Holding Both, and…
image, Dugald Stewart (1753-1828)
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Here’s a question to ponder, no right, no wrong. Just right now and what comes up organically when you trust yourself, and listen to your own inner voice.
What happened over the weekend? What was the theme? Who were you with? How did you show up to you, your needs? What was most meaningful?
To what, whom, how, did you arrive?
On the earth path, we consider where the tide of nature is in its seasonal energies, and where the moon and sun are in their cycles, too.
This past weekend was the dark moon–the last dark moon phase–of the winter, or season of the dark. The dark or reflective energy of life orients us to awareness that is hidden, shadowed, or that we are not conscious of, as much as it also is associated with rest, renewal, rejuvenation, restoration, nutritive descent, and disintegration of one form in order to emerge with one anew. It connects us in rich ways to process as the whole.
Dark as metaphor for winter is North on the medicine wheel, the phase of death and dying, the element of earth, and time spent underground. Over the weekend, with the alignment of the dark moon, it was a rich and wholesome time to embody this medicine in ways that were natural and complete, as we were simultaneously at the end of a natural cycle of nature.
The earth continues on in the completeness of this process of eternal regeneration. Yesterday, the last day of winter, I heard my first osprey! A seasonal, coastal bird of prey, Osprey has long been an organic sign for me of the earth changing seasons. As well, the week prior I found a fresh and tender patch of chickweed in the muck of swamp tidelands. Such sweet green, this little weed is a spring cleanse–I just LOVE that I happened on her in the decomp and decay of the swampy bogs!
And so it is that the tension of dark catalyzes new growth. The Vernal or Spring Equinox, today in the northern hemisphere, occurs when the center of the sun and the center of the earth pass.
This is a transition time, when we are literally in-between! Because of these orbits, we experience equal amounts of day and night on an equinox, or of light and dark. So we are in between equal dark and equal light right now as I write this at twilight. Literally the center line of the yin/yang.
Holding both. The light and the dark.
This is a powerful space right now to deepen this metaphor. No judgement, no shame: what do you consider is your light side, what do you consider your dark? How do the two overlap, how are you at allowing one side to inform the other? How are you at holding your own balance, relating to each? The yin inside the yang, the yang inside the yin.
Spring medicine turns us eastward on the medicine wheel. It is the element of air, and aligned with the seed breaking out of its casing to send roots downward, and to send first green shoots upward, again the medicine of both, and…! Instead of one or the other. It is time for birth on a continuum, specifically as birth is connected to the death of one form during winter and how that motivates growth and motion now.
From today onward, sunlight gains in minutes every day until we peak at the longest day on the summer solstice. We enter the season of light when energy is activating, in motion, and most apparent above the ground.
We gradually move into the time of year for engaging growth and change outwardly in your day to day!
I say gradually so that again, we do not miss the potency of in-between, of holding both, which is what the Equinox is all about!
Be well, friends! Be true to you. Begin within, then go on, get out there! Have fun.
Don’t let them tame you~
Spring Equinox, on a Last Quarter Moon
Spring Equinox is today!!
It is the Entryway into Season of Light.
Entryway a word I use specifically, meaning Threshold Time, time of powerful pause, when two states exist side by side.
At once we hold the Season of Dark’s end, right next to our Sacred entry to Spring.
The winter is our dark night, for all of us!
The Season of the Dark Night of the Collective. It is North on the Medicine wheel, aligned with the wisdom of death, dying, stillness, darkness, quiet, loss, letting go, grief and grieving, potentiality in its raw, unformed aspect. It is all of the space necessary to hold the birth of new life that comes with spring.
This weekend we are at the Crossroads, seeing backwards over winter, and forwards into the coming spring. Spring rotates us eastward, it is air which in March on the eastern seaboard brings me into my experience of fierce winds and change, and too lands me in the miracle of breath, of the knowingness of peace that comes when I begin within, with the simple, profound gratitude for that mystery which breathes me. It is birth, intellect, insight, seeds, innocence, foolishness, sweet~ It reminds us intuitively that with rebirth comes another season of light and fun, another season of the Sun.
We are at a Dual Threshold, for this Monday too, the cross-quarters of the Medicine Wheel intersect.
This happens because the Moon is also half light, half dark. She walks backwards towards her dark, while the Sun marches us forward into the Season of Light. walks us as Backwards and Forwards at once every so often, and from its tense momentum comes Birth. This is always medicine of the Threshold, which we call not just Entryway but Initiation.
As well, it is the Good Medicine of Spring. Birth. East. Dawn.
Free Association Meditation:
Make two lists. One titled Light or Birth. One titled Dark or Death. Remembering the Dual nature of Dark, to die and at once, to hold UnSeen the potentializing energy of what still shall be.
What words or phrases come out naturally under each title? What words or phrases, dreams or thoughts, feelings, instincts inform each title?
Hold Space for Each.
Is there a mantra that holds both, that honors the Sacred Continuum of how the two are connected? A sacred way which weaves more than one idea across the spectrum of letting go and coming to be? Which holds the true inner-outter diversity of Life? A sentence that claims what you want, see, or need? Create one or two.
Choose the language that best suits how you want or need to Relate to it. This is an Intention.
Tend your intentions as we move through the Season of Growth this year.
Remember, right relations begin within~With Wisdom, Comes Responsibility. Your own medicine is what is alive in your own life, a day at a time.
Be gentle, be good to you. When the light comes on, the dark dispels.
Love is all there is~
Don’t Let Them Tame You~
