
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Love shall always
Find a way
Even through
The darkest of day
Love shall always
Find a way
Even through
The darkest of day
A Little Poem by Athey Thompson
Pic curated from Pinterest. Credit to the artist.
If the house of the world is dark, love will find a way to make windows. Rumi

My child soul is eternally fascinated by these sparkly decorator houses that light up. There could be a whole world happening inside, if that’s the story we tell ourselves. It might seem like a fantasy but who’s to say what’s real and what isn’t? For me, that’s the endless appeal.
In this story, the bunnies live happily ever after, full of love in their sweet little home.

The people of this world are like the three butterflies in front of a candle’s flame.
The first one went closer and said: I know about love.
The second one touched the flame lightly with his wings and said:
I know how love’s fire can burn.
The third one threw himself into the heart of the flame and was consumed.
He alone knows what true love is.
Butterfly photo by Enchanted Seashells
“Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
I woke up at dawn to watch the arrival of the sun and the sky was spectacular! The birds are singing and my resident hawks are nest building. All around me, I see evidence of rebirth.
You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming.” – Pablo Neruda
This year’s Spring Equinox on March 20 corresponds with Venus retrograde, Mercury retrograde, eclipse season, and Neptune’s entry into Aries for the first time in nearly 165 years.

“Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!” — D. H. Lawrence
The vernal equinox marks the astronomical start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when the sun crosses the celestial equator, resulting in equal day and night hours.
This event symbolizes rejuvenation, new beginnings, and spiritual awakening — the perfect opportunity to embrace change and harmony between light and dark.
“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature; the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” — Rachel Carson
Many pagans today celebrate the spring equinox as ‘Ostara’, which is a Latin variation of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of dawn, spring, fertility, and rebirth — Oestra (or Eostre) with roots in Germanic cultures.
New ideas are calling out to us. The animal world is buzzing with new life. This month is about trying new things out: What excites you right now? What are you interested in? What are you drawn toward?
Just like we plant seeds in the ground to watch them grow and eventually harvest fruit, flowers, or vegetables, which seeds will we plant in our minds and hearts? What will we manifest? What will WE grow?
Image curated from Pinterest. Credit to the artist.
Sometimes the only healing modality for all this stress and anxiety is to go outside and work in the garden. Flowers don’t care if democracy is crumbling; there is regenerative rebirth every spring, no matter what or whom is orchestrating our demise.
After the rain, all my fruit trees burst forth with glorious flowers. It’s a small tree, but full of life. I’m continually fascinated with photographing raindrops.
Infinite peach-blossom shades,
her rouged and powdered cheeks.
Spring breezes help her break my heart,
blowing peach petals from her dress. — Yuan Zhen

We are living in sad and scary times. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote the poem “Pity the Nation” in 2007, drawing inspiration from Khalil Gibran’s original work of the same title, published in 1933. Their words are a reminder about the cycles of history.
We’ve been warned.
PITY THE NATION
Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerers
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2007
PITY THE NATION
By Khalil Gibran, 1933
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.
I had another lucid dream about my kitty, Bandit. She was seated on the sofa, paws tucked up under her body, and she was simply looking at me.
When she was alive, she would often stare at me, right through to my bones, with such intense love in her eyes that I’d have to stop whatever I was doing and bask in the feeling of being so very loved. SIGH. I surely do miss that girl.

And, there
In the mists of my memory
I see you.
And, there
In the mists of my memory
You shall always be.
A little poem written by Athey Thompson

“Heart is sea,
Language is shore,
whatever sea includes,
will hit the shore.” Rumi
When things are as bad as they appear to be here in the US, and with growing anxiety every day, sometimes all we can do is breathe and reach for the light wherever we can.

Light is the thing we seek
Within the darkest of day,
let it show us the way.
Little words by Athey Thompson
“Reaching for that Star” by Florian Ceglarek