Equinox

This is it, the official beginning of spring.  Oh, the long awaited date and season and sun.  The sun is white, sitting over the tops of the houses to the East, diffused through the thin cloud that heralds the start of a glorious day.   It is still cold from early evening to early morning marking the hours of the sun's absence, but it builds to a warmth you can live in during the day.

I love this day, the changeover from winter to the early train of summer.  I love that everywhere today is the same, we all have twelve hours of day and night, equal night, equinox.  And as we sail smoothly into our opening light and new season of warmth, so the south tilts into its fall into darkness and the call of winter.  Today is a magic day, yet most people won’t notice it, save perhaps a smile at the new-found warmth of the sun.  We live on our planet like strangers, not recognising its journeys or its moods, sheltered from the weather and with a ready light to hide the dark.

Celebrating an equinox or solstice is not the prerogative of pagans, for how rude not to acknowledge the birthdays of our home, not to enjoy the relationship we have with the earth on which we live all our days.  It enhances not supplants our worship of God for the ground of all worship is wonder and awareness.  All creation tells forth the glory of God, the new sun rising, the hazy air sharpening, the primroses covering the lawn in gentle yellow welcome, the quickening of spring awakening the buds, calling the call to life that echoes in our blood.

I desire to be out here today but I cannot, so can I take these elements of earth and air and fire and hold them in a burning cauldron safe in my heart?  Can I ever trust as trees do, or will I always bother and fuss before I find the narrow path?  Is that part of the human condition, part of my makeup, a jigsaw dance between the bother and the bliss, learning to carry all the bits equally well, living in memory and faith at the same time, trusting, trusting as trees dig roots into deep soil, trying to enjoy all parts of the journey and not just the destination.  Today I have things to do that will call me away.  Today I hang my needs on the wheel of the sun and let it turn me.