Here we are in the full leafiness of spring,
the season that brings an infusion of new life, regeneration and joy.
Can you feel it? Does it make you want to sing, dance, make love, run, walk, or laugh?
Or do you feel tired, tossed around a little from the spring , or overwhelmed from so much to do – with weeding now being added to the list!
Whichever it is, I invite you to observe whether you are drawn to water. Water is the great cleanser, and cleansing is often needed before you can move on, releasing the old and opening to what is new and enlivening.
Water
It is no coincidence that here in Aotearoa New Zealand we have a custom of taking our first swim at Labour weekend in late October. Or that the Māori whakataukī says of Whiringa-ā-nuku, the fifth month of the year:
Rima ka kaukau ana tangata—people swim again
My Celtic ancestors emerged from winter confinement at Beltane, halfway between spring equinox and summer solstice. They reeleased their cattle to winter pasture, and visited wells and springs, seeking healing.
The Romans dedicated a whole festival to the reviving power of water. At the Fontanalia, they decorated wells and springs with flowers, and threw garlands into water.
Māori used the cleansing power of water for tapu clearing, and initiation rites in many cultures are conducted in streams and lakes.
Celebrating
If you are in the northern hemisphere, you will be entering the night of the dead: Halloween. For those of you in the in the dying season, I would like to encourage you to go to the deeper meaning behind Halloween.
For those of us in the southern hemisphere, we are approaching peak spring, the festival of Beltane. I invite you to set aside the ceremonies of dying that belong to the north, and enter fully into the greening season that is here now.
Spring deserves its own festivals! You may like to throw a spring party, or celebrate your own r*tual for Whiringa-ā-nuku/Beltane, on October 31, or close to this date.
Three steps for a spring celebration
Here is a simple r*tual that you can do by yourself or with some friends to open to the beauty and power of spring.
1. Cleansing
The first step of a spring r*tual is clearing and cleansing with water. Take time to reflect on what you need to release so that you can step forward into spring with openness and pleasure. As you swirl your hands in a bowl of water, a stream or the sea, imagine that you are letting go, gladly and willingly, of what you no longer need.
Step Two
2. Noticing
The second step is opening your senses. After cleansing with water, step outside to stand or sit in a garden, park, or other place in nature. Spend ten minutes opening your senses to the natural world.
What do you see? Smell? Taste? Hear? Sense?
This is what I’ve been noticing:
The plane trees flapping their soft bright leaves like wings, the puriri popping with new pink flowers, and the harakeke flowers changing into sharp pods. Against all this brightness, the sky is a deeper blue, and the clouds dazzling white.
A corokia hedge is covered with happy yellow stars. In the bush, the karaka has pushed out bunches of tiny green flowers and mouku ferns have produced babies on every frond.
A new babe is born. A fight breaks out at the pool. A small dog with a huge yap chases a middle-sized ball. Cars roar on journeys out of the city. The sea sparkles. A riroriro warbles. The wind rustles through soft new leaves.
Step Three
3. Opening to new beginnings
The third step is to take up your journal and open to the new.
What do you notice stirring in you, that wants your attention?
What new beginnings are calling?
Take some reflective time, and write with ease, letting your insights flow through you on to the paper with the fluidity of water.
I wish you spring joy and lightness of heart!
Blessings,
Juliet
PS You might want to ‘wear the green’ on October 31 by pinning a sprig of greenery in your buttonhole. It’s a nice way to counterbalance the northern hemisphere festival of the dead that has found its way into our world in the midst of spring greening.
Books for the Seasons
Celebrating the Southern Seasons
I love your simple rituals to greet the spring. I do celebrate Beltane and I now want to add your suggestions. I despair about the importation of Halloween and talk about the seasonal misfit to anyone who will listen (with little effect, I am sorry to say).
Thank you Germana. I have approached the issue of the seasonal msifit with the imported Halloween from many different angles. It’s another version of celebrating Christmas with snow and reindeers, instead of realising it’s summer solstice here. Maybe that analogy will help? This year I’ve decided to herald spring, to sing the song of spring as persistently as I can.
To me Beltane is a time of renewal; new beginnings. I like getting up early and listening to the blackbird’s morning song :-) Blessings be.
I like the sound of that, waking with the blackbird, and experiencing renewal and new beginnings! Thank you Brenda.