Tag Archives: Rainer Maria Rilke

Vernal Equinox – Happy First Day of Spring!

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“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.

As Above, So Below

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Photo by Visit Greenland on Pexels.com

As we transition into another Mercury Retrograde (whatever that means) and another super moon, this Sunday finds me in a sort of melancholy mood. The Full Flower Moon coincides with a total lunar eclipse in some areas, so a lot is happening above us.

As above, so below.

These words from Rainer Maria Rilke resonate deep within my heart.

“So you mustn’t be frightened, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do.

You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.

Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going?

Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change.

If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!