Some people say that springtime is the most wonderful time of the year with flowers bursting forth, sweet smells on the breeze, and the animals in nature being more active and noticeable. People, too, get out and about more.
There is much to celebrate, with Spring bringing a sacred time known as the Spring Equinox. This article will explore the Spring Equinox and cover the following topics:
When the Spring, or Vernal Equinox rolls around, many will proclaim “Spring has sprung!” meaning the weather is warm again, and life can be seen growing and thriving after the long, cold winter. People go out and celebrate, and by the look of things, animals celebrate the change in season too!
What is the Spring Equinox, and how is it celebrated in some parts of the world? What are some symbols of the equinox, and what are some sacred places associated with it? How is healing involved in the equinox, and how can you celebrate it yourself? Read on to find out.
What is an Equinox?
National Geographic states, An equinox is an event in which a planet’s subsolar point passes through its Equator.” For those of us who are not scientists, what this means is that during an equinox, the day and night are equal.
After the moment of the Spring Equinox, the days will grow longer, and after the Fall Equinox, the days grow shorter. The Spring, or Vernal Equinox occurs near March 21 and the Autumnal, or Fall Equinox happens around September 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is the opposite, with them having their Spring when the Northern Hemisphere has Fall. You can read National Geographic’s article on Equinoxes here: Equinox (nationalgeographic.org)
There are two regions that really don’t have Equinoxes, however. At the Equator, they have equal amounts of light no matter what time of year it is. At the Antarctic and Arctic regions, something different happens because of Equinoxes. They have something called the Midnight Sun, with twenty-four hours of sunlight from one Equinox and then the other Equinox creates a Polar Night which is twenty-four hours of night.
Meaning of The Spring Equinox
The Spring Equinox means change, new beginnings, healing, renewal, and life. Some cultures celebrate their New Year at the Vernal Equinox, and some celebrate it as a time to connect to family
Others will venerate deities of fertility and new life, while some see the Spring Equinox as a time to worship deities of resurrection. The Spring Equinox, in general, is a time to remember the eternal cycles of life, and the fact that even after someone’s death, life on earth continues to exist.
Some see the Vernal Equinox as a day they can be closer to the sun’s energy and will reach out to it for strength and healing. Others have rituals and make offerings to deities, asking them to strengthen the land, so a great harvest can be had before winter.
For others, the Equinox represents leaving behind the old and stepping into another time, a newer time, when things that no longer serve them can be left in the past. Celebrations worldwide have happened on Spring Equinox for thousands of years, and today, these celebrations go on every year.
Spring Equinox Around the World
While there are celebrations for Spring Equinox on every continent, only a few stand out as perfect examples of these celebrations. In parts of Europe and the Americas, a dawn goddess named Ostara is venerated while in Persia, a celebration that has been observed for over three thousand years happens. In Japan, they observe Shinbun no Hi.
Ostara
Ostara is a celebration of Ostara, goddess of the dawn. Her name is also written as Eostre, and it is the basis of the month called Eosturmonath. She was first written about by the Venerable Bede in his eighth century publication, The English Months. He wrote:
“Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.”
This was also written about by Jacob Grimm, and he wrote:
“Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of up springing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian's God. Bonfires were lighted at Easter and according to popular belief of long-standing, the moment the sun rises on Easter Sunday morning, he gives three joyful leaps, he dances for joy ... Water drawn on the Easter morning is, like that at Christmas, holy and healing ... here also heathen notions seems to have grafted themselves on great Christian festivals. Maidens clothed in white, who at Easter, at the season of returning spring, show themselves in clefts of the rock and on mountains, are suggestive of the ancient goddess.”
He also wrote that the goddess was so well-loved that the Christians transferred her name to their resurrection celebration of their Christ, calling it Easter, rather than changing the name to something else.
Grimm wrote that there was a Germanic male god names Austri who was a “spirit of light” and that Austra would be a female form of that. He said that water drawn on Ostara is seen as blessed and is used for healing and that bonfires, colored eggs, dancing, and baked goodies were all part of the Ostara celebrations the Christians carried over into their Easter celebrations.
Today’s revivalists use elements of Easter celebrations, complete with sweets, colored eggs, and images of rabbits and hares to represent fertility. A blessing of seeds, and garden work happens in many sacred circles, meaning groups of devotees, and others will have a basic blessing of the land and people.
Praying for inspiration and the energy to begin new endeavors is done by some, and others just give thanks to various mother goddesses for the life they give, and for fellowship with others.
Iran
In Iran, also known as Persia, they celebrate Nowruz at the Spring Equinox. The word Nowruz means “new day” and the celebration dates back at least three thousand years and celebrates the fertility of the earth. It is not only celebrated in Persia but also by some people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Uzbekistan, India, Turkey, and Kazakhstan as well as other nations.
Feasting with traditional dishes is a big part of the celebration, and although the holiday dates back to pagan times when Zoroastrianism was the official religion, members of all religions celebrate it now.
The Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote that the holiday was established during the reign of the King and High Priest Jamshid, who was said to rule over not only humans, but also animals and all the angels and demons as well.
It would go on to become the most important holiday, and certain taxes were paid that day, and the royal house would give gifts and pardon prisoners. People do spring-cleaning to remove the darkness of the winter from their homes and fill their tables with sacred symbols of the holiday, as well as placing their holy scriptures on the table. Mirrors, and goldfish in aquariums are symbols of luck, and they are placed on the table as well.
They light fires in the streets and the schools are closed for about two weeks to allow festivities. New clothes are gifted and families come together to feast. Dancing in the streets, feasting with friends and neighbors as well as the family and leaping or walking through blessed fires are other festivities for Nowruz. Three thousand years from now, it will probably still be celebrated the same way it is today.
Japan
Shunbun no Hi is celebrated on the Spring Equinox in Japan. The exact date varies by year, with precise astrological calculations released less than two months in advance of the date to make sure the holiday is celebrated at just the right time. This is a national holiday and is part of a whole week of festivities known as Higan that celebrates families and venerates the ancestors.
Traditionally it is also a time to do deep cleaning in homes and to start new ventures that improve your life such as signing up for classes or beginning new hobbies. People get the day off for Shinbun no Hi, and they take the opportunity to go home to visit with their families. A trip to the graves of family members to tend the site, clearing debris and leaving flowers as gifts are made. Farmers will pray for healthy crops and a good harvest as well.
Sacred Places to Visit for the Equinox
Maybe you don’t celebrate Ostara, Nowruz, or Shinbun no Hi, but you would like to go someplace for the Equinox. A historic site in Great Britain will welcome you, but you don’t necessarily need to travel that far. You can pick trails in nature or celebrate at your own table.
Loughcrew Megalithic Center
Nearby Oldcastle in County Meath, Ireland, there is a historic site called Loughcrew that dates back to around the fourth millennium BCE. There are a number of historic monuments there, and all of them together are a place called Slieve na Calliagh, which means “The Cailleach’s Mountain.”. The legends say the Cailleach, a creatrix being and goddess of Winter, formed the area when she was carrying stones in her basket, and dropped some of them.
At Loughcrew, there are megalithic passage tombs, and it is believed over one hundred and fifty different mounds and cairns have been found so far, and there is no telling what else will be found with more research.
One stone is called Cairn T, because the light of the Vernal Equinox strikes the stone at dawn, and it also illuminates a ceiling stone at that Cairn. That stone is also called the Stone of the Ollam Fotla. Ollam Fotla was Eochaid, a High King of Ireland.
A powerful king who ruled for forty years, Eochaid established the Assembly at Tara also called the Feis Temarch where on every third Samhain, nobles, scholars, and other leaders got together to pass laws, renew contracts, and create documentation. There were three days of feasting after this. Although it is considered foolish to damage the structures there, lest you earn a curse, graffiti is found from time to time.
A visit to this site can be made for the Vernal Equinox and if you are there at the right time, you can see the stones at the Ollam Fotla illuminated by the dawn. To book your trip, visit the site's web page, and get started there:Loughcrew Cairns | Heritage Ireland
Spring Trails
Maybe you don’t want to book a trip to Ireland to see megalithic monuments, but you have amazing trails closer to home. Departing just before sunrise, you can watch the first rays of the Vernal Equinox sun come up in nature. American Trails says there are over sixty thousand miles in the United States, with at least eleven thousand miles of trails in each individual State.
In Central Ohio alone, there are over two hundred Metro parks with more than twenty-seven thousand acres of land to enjoy. Walking the trails to see what wildflowers are growing in early Spring and seeing how the trees are growing is a great way to experience the Equinox, all by the early light of the sunrise. Keep in mind, some parks will allow dogs on certain trails, and you can pack a picnic brunch or lunch and stay for the day.
Your Table
Many celebrate the Spring Equinox with a special meal and invite family and friends who become the family they choose. Special foods will vary by your region and the seasonal things the earth in your hometown has produced.
Typical foods of the Vernal Equinox include breads, eggs, ham, sweets, dried fruits, olives, chickpeas, turkey or chicken. The truth is, there is no perfect food to have to celebrate the Spring Equinox. The food depends on the cook. A good example of a prayer for the Equinox is:
“May god bless this food that has been placed before us, and thank you for bringing us all together to share this meal. May god bless the hands that prepared this food and always bring us together.”
When you take the time to make food for the people who you love, you give them a part of yourself. When you share the foods you make best, you give people a part of who you are, and each time they eat a dish prepared by you, you nourish them, and give them life.
Food is a way to share love and life, and it is also used for comfort, and believe it or not, healing. One of the most sacred places on the planet is your table, where foods you put your heart and soul into await the people who you love.
Sacred Symbols of the Spring Equinox
While the Equinox is celebrated worldwide, some very powerful sacred charms and symbols of the season have become characteristics of it. Rabbits and hares are the most characteristic symbols of the Equinox. Believe it or not, serpents are also symbols of the season!
Rabbits and Hares
Rabbits and hares represent the fertility of the season because they are…well…fertile. They’re able to have up to fourteen babies per litter and up to twelve litters per year! Hares, on the other hand, don’t have nearly as many, but they resemble rabbits enough to be associated with fertility.
Hares and rabbits are seen in large numbers in early Spring, and they have been associated with the goddess Eostre, meaning they are her creatures for the Equinox.
Some writers say in antiquity, it was believed rabbits laid eggs in early spring for the goddess Ostara because she made it so. She was on her way to make the Spring begin, but she saw a bird dying, with its wings frozen to the ground, so she saved him, also taking him as her lover. The bird’s wings were so damaged, he could no longer fly, so she turned him into a show hare, so he could move freely again and run to safety when predators approached.
She gave the rabbit the ability to lay all colors of eggs in honor of the fact it used to be a bird. The very fertile rabbit had many other lovers besides the goddess, and once she found out, she banished him to the sky!
However, she allowed him to come back every year to give colored eggs to the children, and that’s where the story of the Easter Bunny comes from. Some say this is a new myth, and was not created in ancient times, but it’s still one worth telling!
Eggs
Some associate colored eggs with Ostara, but colored eggs for the Spring Equinox are also created in Persia and Ukraine. They seem to be a universal symbol, and that is because people understand what an egg is. Within an egg is a living organism that will be born if it isn’t eaten first. All lifeforms are first in some form of egg before they are born. What better symbol of a time of new life and fertility than the very thing we all once were?
Eggs are colored by different people for different reasons. Christians traditionally dyed eggs red to represent the blood of their Christ at the Spring Equinox. One story goes that Mary Magdalene found eggs near the tomb of Jesus, and they were a multitude of different colors, so they make colorful eggs in honor of that.
People have been painting and dyeing eggs since before Christianity, however, and adorning a symbol of life for the Equinox transcends religion and time. It is believed eggs have been dyed and painted in Persia for at least three or four thousand years!
Serpents
Serpents are not popularly seen as sacred beings, but they are. Mainstream Christians characterize them as demonic creatures who led humanity astray, but some see them as wise creatures who reveal hidden truths to those brave enough to ask them for guidance.
Serpents were revered by South Americans, and one place where you can see a serpent “descend” on Spring Equinox is in Chichen Itza in Mexico. Kukulkan is a plumed or feathered serpent deity who was worshiped beginning at least by Mayans and while we know little about him, we do know that many people in Mesoamerica worshiped him, and they communicated and traded together.
On the Spring Equinox, beginning at the top of a pyramid at Chichen Itza, the Spring Equinox sun creates light and shadows that interact in such a way beginning at the top, and descending all the way to the bottom to a carved plumed serpent head to create a one hundred and twenty foot serpent, an image of the god Kukulkan. Thousands of people gather each year to witness this and partake in the blessings of being in the presence of this plumed serpent god.
The god Kukulkan is a god of creation, rain, storms, and life itself. He is a god who moves between the realms of earth and the underworld, being proficient in the wisdom of all planes of existence. At the Spring Equinox, he appears and shares his wisdom and blessings with humanity.
Serpents represent divinity, hidden wisdom, and the ability to move between the worlds, and their reemergence from hibernation once the earth warms is a welcome sight for human beings who seek their spiritual guidance.
Healing and The Equinox
Because it is a time of new beginnings, the Spring Equinox is seen as a good time for healing, casting off illness, sorrows, and spiritual blockages to usher in new health, joy, and spiritual rejuvenation.
Does energy healing really work? Healing energy works, no matter what time it is used, but using the power of the earth at the Equinox is something natural healers have been doing for a long time. Spiritual healing can be done easily, using water that is drawn from any freshwater healing source in nature, and with the power of the first rays of the sun.
Draw the water just before sunrise, or the day before. Then as the sun rises, hold the water up where the Spring Equinox sunrise can shine right on it. This will bless the water and is one of the simplest ways of how to do energy healing preparations.
Healing with energy of the earth, not just the sun, can also be done on the Equinox. What color symbolizes healing if not the green like the earth? Go into nature and take a “green bath”, which is immersing yourself completely in a green environment, so you can be completely enveloped in green healing earth energy.
Going into the forest is a perfect way to do this. If you are lucky, your own yard will provide this, and touching the earth and visualizing it pulling out all impurities and illness out of you and replacing that with the green, fruitful growth of the Spring earth is an excellent form of healing.
What is the color of energy that matters most to you, however? Is it red to symbolize magic, or even pink for love? You can immerse yourself in the healing color you most want to draw energy from for the Vernal Equinox.
If you are wanting to be more joyous, wear yellows and oranges, and place a yellow or orange light bulb in a lamp and sit in meditation with your eyes slightly open, so you can see the color the whole time. You can buy decorations with your healing color, and place them around your home. You can also eat foods that are your healing color. Creative things like drawing, painting, and knitting with your healing colors are also ways to surround yourself with the power of color to heal.
How to Celebrate Spring Equinox
You might not practice any particular faith, but you would like to celebrate the Vernal Equinox. You can get healing, feed others, and find new ways to grow.
Healing
Spiritual healing is another form of healing you can enjoy on the Equinox. Joining with others at a celebration and sharing your magic with friends and people who will be new friends in celebration of spirituality can be very healing for some people.
Other people prefer solitude and to go within themselves for spiritual healing, and an excellent way to do that is through meditative journaling. Meditation does not have to be deep breathing and yoga where you focus only on these things. It can also entail conscious thought.
Get a special journal you only use for Spring Equinox spiritual healing, and set aside time every day for a week to pour your heart out onto the pages. Write about every spiritual blockage you feel you have, and every question you have about spirituality.
Write down everything you can think of at the end of the week, or however long it takes to write it all down. Sit quietly during your special journaling time and read what you have written down. Then, once you have read it all, say this prayer:
“I speak to the divine within me, my own immortal soul,
I feel lost. I feel blocked. I need healing.
I know you have the answers, I just can’t unlock them right now.
Answer me what it is that I need to heal,
To be my best self, and to go forward from what has stunted me spiritually.
Help me to hear you when you speak, and show me where to go if I need help.”
Then, every day during your special journaling time, sit in quiet meditation, listening for the answers to come from within you. Keep your journal next to you, and as you get messages, and answers, write them down.
Some people believe we need Priestesses and Priests to mediate for us, but others believe the divine lives within us. You could very well be able to answer your own spiritual questions by listening to your spiritual self!
Feed the Hungry
During the festive holiday season while we plan our own happy gatherings and celebratory feasts, look around to see who needs to be fed physically, and spiritually, and invite them to your table. Some people take the time to donate to food pantries or volunteer their time to cook and distribute food to people who are hungry.
Other people use the holiday as an opportunity to invite people to gather with them who have nobody else and are lonely. Maybe you met somebody who is new in town, and you can invite them to your gathering.
Maybe you can take a homeless animal into your family. There are always ways to include people and feed them spiritually or physically, and opening your heart to help will make more of a difference that you can ever know.
Grow
When you predict your future, what do you see for yourself? Intuitive guides will often tell you that positive change is in store if you will allow it. An intuitive healer can tell you that releasing old patterns that no longer serve you will open you up to accept new experiences.
Think about what new beginnings you want for the Vernal Equinox, and think of what things you can replace old things with. Do you want to spend more time with your children than you are right now? What things are you doing that take up time you can give to the children?
Are you wanting to learn to be a great home chef, but all you eat is premade food? Start cooking fresh foods and give up the premade prepackaged foods. All of us have potential to grow and be our best selves, and all we have to do is begin to make changes a little at a time.
No matter how you celebrate it, may the things in your life be as perfectly balanced as light and darkness are on the Vernal Equinox. May you be surrounded by loved ones and celebrate the new beginnings you are blessed with.
May your intuitive heart guide you to where you can get healing work, and may your intuitive insight guide you to others who you can heal and help. Whether you dream of getting pregnant, or having the potential for transformation within you grow, may the equinox fill you with the light and life of the season.
We have selected the most relevant psychics for this article, you can connect with any of them and get accurate advice on this subject.
