It is the Spring Equinox for 2017….traditionally symbolizing the breaking out of the darkness of winter and the return of light.
It’s time for longer days and an “emerging” as birds sing and buds return from sleep to waking. In my world, it is especially significant this year, due to the symbolic darkness of this past winter on so many levels.
I have wondered if the light would return, and how to face the facts of our existence this last winter.
Even in surviving the longest virus I have ever had, and the lack of sleep from coughing for a month, I knew I was processing grief over our collective journey and the potential losses of what I care about.
How Can We Help Take “Wise Action”
While devastating rains after the drought in California ruined the places I loved so much, and watching the unpredictable changes in temperature, I fought despair and illness this winter. Asking myself: “What to do to balance the depressing news that Climate Change is not to be discussed while we witness the devastation from it?” (And by the way…. there will be no Environmental Protection.)
How to handle the direction of cutting health care to millions who rely on it? Where to receive refugees from war-torn worlds of strife or desert conditions. And how to plan for more as oceans rise? How to “protect” ordinary people and the health of our planet now?
Where can we help? How can we help take “wise action” if denial is built into the policies of our country’s leaders?
How Do We Support Life and Sustain Ourselves?
These were the big questions for a winter characterized by darkness for many.
I am not being “political” here, or speaking from a liberal or conservative “side.” I am asking how to support Life and our ability to sustain ourselves in this time?
Our tag line at Growing Spaces is “Where Life Thrives.” We aim to remind our clients and students that “Nature is our Teacher and Life Can Thrive” if we learn from her by practicing ways that honor natural living systems.
Our basic business drivers are the experience that health on all levels is supported by participating in Nature. We teach organic gardening to support having a choice about our food. Our product demonstrates that we can use natural systems for heating and cooling. We basically help people develop their natural resources and hope to support human dignity in this way by offering more choice about living naturally. All of this is built on a respect for human dignity and the planet we enjoy. We teach the way we live.
Awakened by Song
As a musician and movement therapist, my life has been blessed and inspired by the work of fine musicians.
In the 80’s I was privileged to travel as a trainer for Aiki Works ® with Ellen Stapenhorst, my friend and cohort. We offered the wisdom of Aikido-based principles for conflict resolution to corporations and leadership conferences. Ellen is also a singer-songwriter. She warmed many a night in our retreats with her talents and sang at my wedding in 1994.
As I have been listening inside for deeper inspiration, I was recently awakened by her words from her new album Gravity and Light.
I have been haunted by her song “The Harvest” as it describes how the “riches from the earth” go into the nourishment we need, all summer….and as we begin this time of sowing seeds.
The Word “Nourishment” Has Become a Meditation for Me….as I Question How to Make it Deeper
How do we nourish ourselves on all levels in times of challenge? How do we return to an experience of center and keep moving? How do we remember the pause needed to remain oriented from a powerful aligned place inside us when there is so much to do?
Ellen’s songs in Gravity and Light remind us to trust gravity and the inevitable landing we all have “learning to fly when we learn to fall.” I know what she is pointing to deep in my soul….I trust the cycles of darkness AND light. We are again learning to fall, but we can also learn to fly.
This Spring Equinox is a dawn. I am finding it everywhere. I am looking for it….
So, I share this song with you as we open out this season and unfurl like a bud, or a new baby plant, into the returning light. It is called “There is Light” and like the Spring Equinox, it reminds us that “a new day will come from the longest night.”
“There Is Light” by Ellen Stapenhorst.
From Her Album Gravity and Light
Find more from Ellen Stapenhorst and discover how her music inspires to “build bridges instead of walls.” https://ellenstapenhorst.net/
4 Comments
Thank you Puja for your “Spring Equinox 2017”. The kaleidoscope of topics you discuss are in my thoughts as well. Spring’s renewal normally fills me with joy, anticipating that Nature will re-emerging following the dark days of winter.
This year my soul is darkened by a government I do not know or support. A friend shared with my husband the poem by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller “First They Came”–I strongly recommend its read, available by searching on Google. America’s current majority government is invoking suffocating and divisive platforms that are shameful and loathsome. America is still an emerging nation, struggling through the years to embrace all humanity, accepting of all ethnicities, all creeds.
Our Growing Spaces Growing Dome continues to offer us pleasure and joy. The power of a single seed, when nurtured, only wants to grow and flourish. Thank you for making available this fine product.
Kindest regards,
Suzanne
I am interested in growing food and flowers in high elevations (8500′) where the temps drop below zero and can stay below freezing for several days. I have just recently moved from sea level, so my learning curve is steep.
I am NOT interested in political posts.
Reflecting as I look out at the snow beautifully lining the tree limbs in intricate detail. I want to say that I have been moved by Nature so much to remind of the Beauty and love that is here and now, even in our time of challenge. I am not a political person, and I strive to hold the tension of opposites with respect for our differences and the necessity of process. Our challenges form us, and I celebrate every day how I am deepened each day as I attempt to come from a unified place. Darkness and Dawn exist together….in constant movement….and the garden is never done.
I appreciate your glow about you and your husband and your great life perspectives here!