The Sun’s annual journey creates two equinoxes. At an equinox, a Latin word meaning “equal night”, the length of day and night are the same. Each equinox brings a change in season. In the southern hemisphere, the September equinox means the start of spring (in 2012, on September 23). The March equinox heralds the start of autumn (in 2013, on March 20). In the northern hemisphere the seasons are reversed.
Throughout history, the spring equinox has been celebrated as a time of renewal and rebirth. In fact, many of what are thought of as Easter traditions originated as northern hemisphere spring equinox festivals. Celebrating spring festivals in September requires a seasonal shift of dates, especially if you’re used to reading information from North American or UK publications.
It doesn’t matter what calendar date is selected to mark spring, its essence — that of the intensifying Sun overcoming the long dark winter nights — remains the same, whatever month it arrives. Writing in The Pagan Christ, Tom Harpur says, “The spring equinox was, next to the summer solstice, the single most important cosmic event for all ancient cultures and religions, from the Druids at Stonehenge to the Native North Americans, from the heart of the African jungle to the fertile plains of Mesopotamia. It’s the supremely symbolic moment when the Sun’s returning vigour actually draws equal to and then surpasses the forces of darkness.” The opposite occurs in autumn, when night overtakes day at the March equinox. Then, longer days give way to longer nights, and themes of closure and release emerge.
Awakening and balance
The natural world awakens in September in Australia and New Zealand. Plants that lie dormant through winter begin to sprout, leaves return to deciduous trees, birds start chirping — and breeding — and flowers begin to bud. The Sun climbs higher, recovering from its winter lows. Temperatures rise and days lengthen.
As an equinox festival, a key spring theme is balance. Night and day are temporarily equal. Writing in Sabbat’s Almanac, Deborah Blake describes themes of balance at this time of year as having to do with the balance between … “not just darkness and light, but also between male energy and female energy, and the physical world and the spiritual world”. She continues by saying this time of year “is all about potential: the potential for balance, within and without, and the potential for growth, renewal and the possibility of a new start”.
As the natural world wakes up, your body and spirit follow suit. Honouring spring’s spirit of renewal means participating in ancient rituals around releasing the old and creating space for the new. The essence of spring cleaning, even though it feels like housework, is in the intention. Adopting the mindset of clearing and cleansing while you work adds a ritualistic quality to daily tasks, which ensures every action helps you to be open to new possibilities.
Spring cleaning originates from beliefs that refreshing your space refreshes or resets your energy. Spring is an ideal time to perform maintenance tasks around your home, such as window cleaning (which helps you see things anew) and clearing out cupboards or the garage, to ensure you greet the emerging season with a clean slate, physically and energetically.
If winter has been hard or you’ve recently suffered loss or stress, clearing the dust, energy and clutter of the past is even more important come spring. Since like attracts like, your efforts to clear and cleanse your home, through simple but rigorous spring-cleaning rituals, creates fresh, positive spaces to attract fresh, positive experiences. Essential oils such as lemon, lime, citrus and pine help energetically clear your space while you attend to dust, grime and dirt.
Spring festivals
The spring equinox represents New Year in many cultures. While most of these cultures are located in the northern hemisphere and thus celebrate New Year on their spring equinox (in March), the focus on food, flowers, eggs and rebirth remains appropriate for Australian spring celebrations in September.
Until 1753, Great Britain celebrated New Year in the spring equinox period. Persians (modern-day Iranians) still celebrate New Year on the spring equinox, with a 13-day festival known as Nowruz. This festival is more than 2500 years old. In Ceremonies of the Seasons, Jennifer Cole writes, “Nowruz, which translates as ‘new day’, is a celebration of hope and renewal which is still observed in Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. It is rooted in Zoroastrianism, the major religion in ancient Persia (Iran) until the arrival of Islam in the 7th century.”
Other spring festivals included the ancient Roman love festival of Veneralia. This was celebrated on the April New Moon (in the southern hemisphere this would be the October New Moon, which occurs at 11.02pm on October 15 in 2012). It honoured Venus Veneralia (“Changer of Hearts”) and also Fortuna Virilis (“Bold Fortune”), to whom women prayed for success in love.
The Saxon goddess Eostre was also celebrated in spring, with rituals focusing on new beginnings and fertility. Many of the pagan traditions associated with ancient Eostre celebrations have been incorporated into Christian Easter — it was to honour Eostre that eggs and rabbits were originally used to celebrate themes of creation and rebirth.
Feminine essence
Spring brings a return of feminine energy. Winter’s barren, dry qualities are replaced by heat and moisture as the Sun’s increasing influence arouses the ground and animals into growth. Come spring, winter’s empty nothingness gives way to the swelling, bursting hopefulness of potential progress. You see this in the changes in your garden and in the bellies of the many creatures who give birth to young at this time of year. Spring means celebrating fertility and the potential for growth and abundance.
Mother’s Day is another spring festival that has lost its seasonal links in southern hemisphere countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The ancient Romans celebrated Matronalia, the festival of women, on March 1 (which corresponds to September 1 in the southern hemisphere). Mother’s Day, which originated in Europe in the Middle Ages, initially fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent, when “people living away from their home parish would return to visit their ‘mother’ church, which led naturally to family gatherings and reunions”.
In the UK, Mothering Sunday is still celebrated in Lent, while in the USA and Australia, Mother’s Day is now celebrated in May. Though today Mother’s Day is about treating Mum, usually with flowers or breakfast, its origins lie in festivals such as pagan Beltane (November 1 in the southern hemisphere), which celebrated the power of fertility.
Spring’s focus on fertility makes it an excellent time to honour your creations in the world, be they the fruit of your loins — your children — or the fruit of your inspiration — your artistic or creative works. If you’re attempting to conceive, paying special attention to diet and lifestyle factors through spring can help you align your body with the fertile energy in the world around you.
Taking time at the spring equinox to visualise and make concrete your creative intentions for the next six months — the energetic growing season — helps create a platform for success. Sharing your goals and inspiration with family or close friends creates a community of support from which you can all benefit.
Spring rituals
Representing the end of winter’s darkness, spring’s rituals are as much about banishing the old and cutting ties with the past as they are about intending and preparing for the new. This ties in with the equinox themes of balance and is perhaps the most natural time of year to focus on the motto “Out with the old, in with the new”.
As the world around you opens, expands and begins to throb with life, it’s appropriate to reawaken your home and energise your living and work spaces. Sunlight and fresh air have a naturally purifying effect. Open the windows and get them cleaned if they’ve become grubby through winter. Tie back curtains to let in maximum sunlight. Hang light-catcher crystals in your east- and north-facing windows to draw the positive energy of the morning and midday sun into as many corners of your home as possible. If your curtains or blinds are dirty, now’s the time to give them a thorough clean.
The feng shui principle of decluttering is best applied in spring. Sort through household items and critically reassess furniture. Anything that’s no longer working, has outlived its purpose or has been outgrown should be repurposed. In the spirit of spring, physically emptying your space helps you emotionally cleanse, too. In The Magical Household, Scott Cunningham and David Harrington write of the spring equinox being a time to “sort through personal possessions and weed out any clothing or other items that no longer suit you. Don’t throw them away, though; donate them to charity.”
If you have access to a growing space — a garden, balcony or even a sunny indoor window ledge — plant seeds for summer foods (lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes are easy to grow and can be planted in the ground or in pots). You might also consider providing for the birds or bees with flowering plants for nectar (for bees) or a bird feeder or birdbath. Watching your garden grow reminds you that life offers a season of growth and that at this time of year a little effort can take you a long way.
Cunningham and Harrington also suggest filling a bowl with water and spring flowers, either from your garden or the florist, and placing it in a prominent place in your home. This is similar to the Hindu Spring Festival of Colour, where people shower each other with coloured powders, water and flower petals. The idea is to surround yourself with symbols of the new season. A bouquet of colourful, fresh flowers, which symbolise new growth and “the promise of warm summer days to come”, is a simple way to do this.
Resurrection
The concept of resurrection is another important spring theme. This is honoured in Christian rituals around Christ’s rebirth, which in turn are based on resurrection and rebirth myths from earlier cultures, including ancient Persia and Rome. There, symbols of the god Mithra, or Mithras, were “taken into underground temples during autumn rites, and brought out again at the spring equinox, symbolically resurrecting the god”.
Resurrection means rebirth, revival or renewal, showing that spring brings an opportunity to become new again. Both inside and out, this season offers you the chance to recreate yourself and your life. Images are powerful tools for connection with the subconscious and can support your personal rebirth at this time of year.
One way to use the power of images to recreate those parts of your life that are stuck is via what Judy Hall calls a Spring Equinox Treasure Map. This is a visual collage of your imagined new life to help you stay focused on manifesting in the year ahead. All you need is the time of the spring New Moon (some time between September 20 and October 20 — in 2012 it’s October 15 at 11.02pm in Sydney), magazines, a piece of cardboard, glue and scissors.
At some point within the two days following the New Moon, take a quiet hour to flick through the magazines and intuitively select images that reflect your dreams and desires. Don’t question or analyse your choices; instead, let your intuition or higher self guide you. Arrange the images on the cardboard, pasting as you go. This tool helps you access the “visual potency” of images, as arranged in a collage full of intention.
Store your Spring Equinox Treasure Map somewhere you’ll see it regularly during the year. It’ll remind you of your dreams and help you stay on track — consciously and unconsciously — to manifest your personal resurrection. For more on the Spring Equinox Treasure Map process, see Judy Hall’s book, New Moon Astrology.
Whether you engage in many spring rituals or just one or two, doing so helps you reconnect with the rhythm of the seasons. As you do, you’ll be reminded that life moves in cycles and that this festival, the spring equinox, offers special opportunities for rebirth and growth.
