Ah, Spring is arriving! Officially, the spring equinox was last Friday, on March 20 this year, and the sun shown across the equinox equator bringing almost exactly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of nighttime to the entire planet as it rotated; the entire Earth has been bathed in Light. Now the balance tilts and our northern hemisphere will have increasing daylight until summer solstice, June 21. Although worldwide, we begin each New Year on January 1, the equinoxes of March (for our Northern Hemisphere) and September (for the Southern hemisphere) alternate in bringing a "refresh" of newness of seasonal change. Our collective awareness of this wonder has ancient roots in human observation and study of our planet, the seasons, and the night time sky. Living in the Northern Hemisphere, in a time of climate shifts, uncertainty, and war, it seems particularly important to enter the spirit of a new season. Let this first week of spring, regardless of the outer picture, be a time for a reset, a time to refresh and enter the Spirit of Spring.
The first layer of a spring refresh, might be simply spontaneous. Yesterday, I was up early, having committed to listening on my phone to a program in another time zone. While attending, I decided to make my morning coffee, and I opened a kitchen drawer. What a mess! My brain was processing the program, but my eyes and hands began to throw out very old spices, some of which layered the drawer with spilled remnants and stain. I realized in the rush of everyday mornings, I had ignored the overload. Some times cleaning really means throw it away! I actually did not connect this sudden imperative to liberate the drawer with my theme of spring refresh, until I sat in meditation. Then, I unexpectedly saw the link--the centuries of traditional spring cleaning and a renewed round of release-the-old, is embedded in human consciousness. Don't dismiss the small step that expresses nature's renewal. We are of nature and sometimes the way of nature is slow and piecemeal, and subtle. And sometimes, it is full throttle.
Consider too, a spiritual refresh. In writing about this time of year, I often reference the religious holidays that can overlap in spring. To me, that overlap of differing belief systems seems particularly significant as an opening for renewal. Ramadan, the holiest month of the year for Muslims, ended this past Thursday night, as devotees broke their month long daytime fast (no food or drink from sunrise to sunset for the entire month). The holy month of Ramadan includes prayer, charity, and celebration, and this year ended powerfully with the dawn of the equinox. In Judaism this year, the solstice falls between the religious observance of Purim (March 2-3) and Passover (April 1-9) which overlaps with Easter this year. In Catholicism and other Protestant denominations of Christianity, there is Lent, a 46 day preparation for Easter Sunday. This year it began February 18th, and ends on Sunday, April 5. While I usually feel a surge of spiritual options and openings with these overlapping sacred holy days, this year, specific countries, in differing streams of these religions, including America, are at war. To see beyond the tragedy of territorial and deathly conflict, requires a deeper renewal. Our choice is to open to that renewal.
Remember the equinox, just last Friday, when the sun shown on the entire sphere of a rotating earth. No one is left out of the movement and Light of wholeness. No one. Matthew 5:45 "...for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." We share this planet. Your inner, spiritual renewal is not separate from the world's renewal. The world's renewal is not separate from your inner renewal. Whatever our belief systems, we share this planet. Spring is arriving. Let our hearts weave, and refresh, connections of Peace. (Susan Nettleton)
for poetry: https://yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=2948 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54303/meeting-at-an-airport https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/R/RumiMevlanaJ/lookatlove/index.html