Crossroads: Spring Equinox

A crossroad is a place where two roads meet, where two planes intersect. It’s where dark and light find neutral ground. Where balance is born.

At the Spring Equinox, our days and nights are of equal length. We have successfully survived the short days and long nights of winter and we can smell spring in the air as we head towards the longest day of the next Solstice. For my practice, the Equinox is symbolic of the crossroads. It is at the point where they meet, where the breathing world joins with the spirit world. It is the place where the gateway exists. That gateway lives inside you.

We have the chance to touch the other side without walking through it, as the point of balance floats over our land like fog, obscuring lines and blurring edges. We stand in the tipping point, the grey space. Equinox is a time for feeling and reflection, a chance to catch our breath before moving forward. Around us, the world is waking.

Outside my kitchen window the flock of sparrows that winter in a wayward bush fill the air and the day with cheeps and chirps and silly songs, as they take turns at the bird feeder. They warm their wings in the sun and carry twigs and hair and roughage to fortify new nests for new life. After such a mild winter, my tiger lilies have sprouted early in the spring warmth and have risen four inches from the soil. The peppermint has begun to bloom and stretch and already must be chastised into staying in its corner of the garden bed. I spent Equinox morning enjoying the sunshine on my skin and the smell of warming grass in the air.

Sensation blossoms full as bulbs prepare for birth. My hands long to touch skin, fur, scales, dirt, worms and seeds. The soft breezes carry hints of fragrance and perfume across my senses- I may not know where from, but I know what’s coming. The wild is waking, heralding its return in the creak-clacking of the grackle’s birdsong in the morning sun. If you quiet yourself you will hear the sounds of creatures stirring.

            I have begun to shed the layers of winter, to cull my home of clutter and items unused so I might pass them on to others in need. The winter altar has been cleared of its evergreen bowers and turned over to spring with purple flowers. The windows will be opened and the house will be aired. The floors will be swept free of dust bunnies and house gremlins. The garden will be planned and the necessary seeds will be ordered.

            The world outside us is waking. And the world inside us is stirring, too.

            In mythology, at Equinox, Persephone rises from the Underworld, from her home with her husband, and in return her mother Demeter allows the trees to bud and flowers to bloom, her grief abated. Inanna resurrects in her sister’s domain below the earth, having passed through death to attain knowledge, and she returns to the world changed. Stories of transformation, of spiritual alchemy. It is the time of doorways, gateways, thresholds and promise. What dream do you bring with you from the darkness? How will you manifest it into reality in the lengthening days?