Living

A Blessed Spring Equinox

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This weekend marks the celebration of the vernal (spring) equinox and the astronomical beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. The actual equinox occurred Mar. 19 at 11:30 p.m. CT (4:30 UTC). Many Pagans, Heathens, Polytheists celebrate the day as Ostara, Lady Day, Shubun-sai, or simply the spring equinox. Within their own varied and diverse traditions, they find ways to honor or recognize the coming of warmer weather and renewed growth, as winter makes its slow departure.

Living

A Blessed Spring Equinox

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Today is the vernal (spring) equinox. It is the astronomical beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Wiccans, Heathens, Polytheists and various modern Pagans celebrate this day as Ostara, Lady Day, Shubun-sai, or simply the spring equinox (autumnal equinox for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere.) Other Spring festivals and holidays, include Holi or the Hindu festival of color, Higan in Japan, Nowruz or New Year on the Persian calendar, the Christian Easter and Jewish Passover. And there are many others. This year’s vernal equinox, which will occur today at 6:45 pm (EDT), will coincide with two other astronomical events: a solar eclipse and a supermoon.

Paganism

Column: We Know Time

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I woke up this morning – one of the first mornings where I was able to sleep with the window open, the surest sign that Spring has finally arrived – and found it was still dark. I rarely wake up so early, and I took a moment – well, more like fifteen minutes – to lay there in the darkness, still beneath the covers, and listen to the birds calling in the dawn. After a few minutes in which my universe consisted only of birdsong and darkness, a sentence came into my head and began swirling around, like a song with an inescapable tune. “We know time.” It’s a koan that Dean Moriarty, Jack Kerouac’s trickster saint, repeats again and again throughout On the Road.