Spring Equinox, a day of equal light and dark, a welcome pause, a momentary experience of balance. This is nature’s pause before action. At each equinox we hang momentarily in the balance as we linger in the liminal space between no longer and not yet.
At Spring Equinox we are no longer in winter yet not fully in spring, we are on the cusp of change and new beginnings and with transition comes expansion. We are expanding to meet our potential and expansion doesn’t always happen in neat, straight and predictable lines.
A snake becomes dulled and agitated before shedding its skin, a seed must crack and split before it can root and grow and a person must undergo an intense, powerful and almost overwhelming expansion during the transition stage of birth. Expansion and transition can look messy and painful from the outside but everything is unfolding as it should.
Nature’s transitions offer us this reassuring reminder as we transition from brewing our ideas in the quiet of winter to seeding and rooting them in the world in the buzz of spring.
This reminder also extends to each of our transitional moment of life whether a seasonal juncture, a birthday, menstruation, menopause, birth, house moves, marriage, divorce, grief. We are continuously shedding our skins and expanding into new iterations of ourselves and there may be times when it feels as though we cannot go on or times when the path forward is not yet clear but wherever you find yourself know that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
Just as at this transitional time of year in nature we can expect warm sun followed by sharp frosts, harsh winds followed by heat waves, it is entirely normal in times of transition to meet polarity within ourselves; a strong desire to grow tempered with a deep call for more rest, a pull forward to action meeting a push back of inertia, our extroversion meeting our introversion, the rub of doing and being. This is as it should be.
As we expand we are seeing our past and our potential in one moment. We are meeting ourselves as we have been, as we are now and as we might be. It is a process and one that requires patience, persistence and perseverance.
Thankfully the Spring Equinox offers support and a little respite with the promise of lighter days ahead. There may finally be the stirrings of optimism, vitality and energy as the heaviness and stagnation of winter gradually releases its grip.
This is a time for us to consider what we want to shed as we expand and what we would like to pour our precious growth energy into over the coming months.
‘Wherever you find yourself, know that it is the perfect place to be. Evolution doesn’t unfold in straight and predictable lines. It spins and swirls, meets dead ends, often needing to turn back on itself to find another, more fruitful path. And so will you. Give yourself over to the truth of this dynamic surprising dance. Dedicate yourself to loving wildness as it lives in and around you.’ ~ Mary Reynolds Thompson, Reclaiming the Wild Soul
Photo credit: Kentaro Toma
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