This year in the Commons we are exploring ways to create nature festivals as Gaian celebrations focused on the earth’s seasonal experience of its wholeness from both the Southern and Northern hemisphere’s perspectives. As we prepare for the March Equinox, the second in our seasonal Gaian festival explorations, our planning evoked new images and insights for the Equinox, what that gateway brings the planet, and what it can mean for us.
The term ‘Equinox” is derived from aequus (equal) and nox (night). At the time of the Spring and Fall Equinox, day and night, light and dark are balanced and of approximately equal duration all over the planet. The Equinox marks a moment of Threshold, Balance and Pause, when the tilt of the planet in its orbit means that the sun’s rays fall in a horizontal line along the earth’s equator.
In our planning conversations we observed that the March Equinox becomes a Threshold/Doorway where Gaia’s breath, expanding since the Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere, and contracting since the Summer Solstice in the Southern hemisphere, meets in the middle, so to speak, at the equator. We in the North stand in the Doorway between Winter/Spring, inviting new growth/blossoming and widening light. Members of the Commons from the South stand in the Doorway between Summer/Fall, inviting the withdrawal and narrowing of light/life into seed and more focused intent. By celebrating Spring and Fall Equinox together, we are once again working with a rhythm, a rhythm of balance and invitation as Earth’s breath expands and contracts.
Our festival movement/gesture for the December Solstices was the spiral. Those of us celebrating the Winter Solstice walked a spiral of our making inward, to a point of stillness and introspection–Sovereignty and Identity. This mirrored the pause at the point of Gaia’s greatest in-breath, and the greatest manifestation of darkness. Those celebrating the Summer Solstice walked outward from the center of the spiral–their place of Sovereignty and Identity–mirroring the time of Gaia’s most expansive outbreath and the greatest manifestation of light.
When we were considering what gesture/pattern of movement we might use for the March Equinox, the lemniscate (the symbol for infinity, the figure 8) came to mind. This seemed right, and we imagined that pattern stretched out horizontally, with the point in the center as the Doorway/Threshold where we all stand in Balance and Equilibrium together at Equinox time.
From that place in the center, we can experience both the pause, the balance and the moving flows of life. As the light expands in the Spring, Gaia’s breath and energy widens, expanding into leaf and bud. As the light decreases in the Fall, Gaia’s energy and breath narrow and focus, concentrating summer growth and life force into seed and bulb.
Our festival gesture/movement will be one of “invitation and inclusion.” As we walk our lemniscates, either physically or meditatively, we can intentionally invite and include the spirit of our homes and our land, our local nature spirits, house angels, genius loci of land, unseen allies and companions to join us in weaving our seasons together, and standing at the moment of pause and balance and equilibrium together.
This spirit of “invitation and inclusion of other” seems particularly appropriate for an Equinox Festival. The quality of the Solstice is reflected in its deepening alignment with inner and outer Sovereignty and Identity, in ourselves, and in seed and flower. The quality of the Equinox invokes widening and inclusion, expanding Sovereignty and Identity into recognition of Connection and Interdependence. At the Equinox time, Gaia is both widening and focusing–in the North expanding into growth and diversity of flower and blossom, and in the South, contracting into focus and formation of seed and potential.
Here is the suggested movement for our lemniscate pattern:
We will stand or focus at the Threshold/Doorway in the center of our lemniscate. We will move out from that point of balance, creating a flowing movement that goes backwards around the loop, to honor and embrace the gifts of the season we are leaving behind. We will be circling the loop behind us, to reach the present moment again at the center Doorway. Then, facing the loop before us, we will move forward, to invite and discover the gifts of the season ahead, and to bring those gifts when we go round the loop and return to the center of the present moment. We will then pause together at our Doorways, a moment of “betwixt and between,” a moment of Wholeness.
When those from the Northern hemisphere work with Winter/Spring and those from the Southern hemisphere work with Summer/Fall, and we do this together, we are celebrating Gaia in her point of equilibrium and balance, embracing all four aspects of her own life expression and all four seasons in one festival. This is a festival of Wholeness.
To bring beauty and form to our celebration, we can weave together the seasonal gifts we find, in any creative way we wish–physically as an altar, a wreath, an arrangement, a mandala–anything that we find in nature or our homes that represents the two seasons of our hemisphere’s transition. Alternatively, in our heart and mind, we can hold the image of the blessing of the season’s gifts in symbol or poem, thinking back to what has come, and forward into the future. You are invited to share these gifts, creations and musings, either at our Gaian Equinox festival on March 20th or online in the Commons.
Festivals create moments of pause and reflection in our busy lives, and provide new meaning and context for us to come together in a spirit of honor, fun and celebration. Festivals help us to play: they allow us to include, distill and understand our relationships with all life. Celebrating together is a way to strengthen our Gaian connections, and make them more active and present in our lives.
The March Equinox festival helps us explore what it means to stand at a threshold point of balance and equilibrium in our lives. With its focus on equity and balance, it is a timely and important gesture for our times.
(Download How to Create an Equinox Lemniscate below for a more detailed explanation and meaning.)