Dark and Light in Balance.

Minimally adapted from my post on the Prairie Star Herbalist Connection published March 21, 2021.

Last month we celebrated the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere.  It has been a demanding year, such as our ancestors have at times known, challenged by disease, loss, and diminished access to things needed for life.  For some this has included household supplies, for some food, and for others, the security of a home was in jeopardy.  Yet it is important to realize that the difficulties we have faced as the sun completed a cycle have been overcome in the past, numerous times, by those who came before us — with courage and creativity, and through connection with each other and the earth that supported them.   In proof of that — we are here.

Yes, it truly was a demanding winter, beginning here with a freeze that destroyed some trees and left many that lived still looking as if they had been damaged by aerial bombs.  Then the pandemic seemed to peak, and at the height of that we plunged into the deepest cold known in any February.

analogicus from Pixabay

But at last the cold relented, leaving a cool, dim spring in it’s wake, teasing with a few warm days now and then.  Finally, as always, there comes a time when we put away the things of winter as Spring unfolds in a glory of Forsythia, Quince, Redbuds, yellow green leaves, and clouds sailing in a bright blue sky.

How is it even possible to think about aligning with the Rhythms of the Earth in such times, when scarcity, insecurity, and disruption are making themselves so immediately known?

It is, in fact, perhaps the most important thing we can do. 

Awareness of our connection with the Earth and Elements that are the sole support of life on this planet has been deliberately subverted in the name of industrial and post-industrial life.  Yet it is in remembering the lost connections that we are open to insights that help us mitigate harm now, and into the future that we build.

Rebekka D from Pixabay

Just as food is not created by a grocery store, it is not either created by a farmer who nurtures crops on land they love; although those stewards, if raising food in harmony with Earth, deserve our greatest gratitude and reverence.  No, it is created in the bones of the earth filled with the signals of other life forms carried by micorrhyzae that nurture the vital force in the seed or cutting — in the presence of Air, Fire and Water that also nourish the new life into being.  When these sacred elements are impaired, some forms of life struggle, and all must adapt.  And we will lose some.

In the blindness born of disconnection, we have collectively damaged each of these.  We have also created incubators for deadly diseases to arise more often, at a time when we ourselves are weakened by that same disconnection, and living outside of deep interaction with Air-Fire-Water-Earth, the elements that support us.  Realigning with these and the cycles of day-night, the waxing and waning moon, and the seasons of the solar cycle are a path to remembering the lost connections, and moving again into generative living.

A way to align with the forces of life  in a season is to align with the season’s element. The element for spring is Air.  

It is through Air that we share much of our communication with the plants.  They create oxygen for us, we create carbon dioxide for them, and we exchange them easily.  In that exchange we share knowledge of each other through neurotransmitters, hormones and other chemicals.  The Air we breathe has circulated around the globe many times during the presence of our species here, making it probable that we have all exchanged air with each other too.   Breath connects us and is one way our microbiome grows.  How sad then, that something so primeval and primal must be guarded in times of pandemic.

GeorgeB2 from Pixabay

Some Ways to Connect With Air . . .

We connect with Air by observing its interactions with the other elements: (Earth – leaves or dust in wind, tree branches blowing.  Fire – air feeds it, helps it grow, can direct it’s course.  Water – driving rain, clouds, waves).  We also observe the creatures of air:  Seeds born on the wind.  Birds.  Butterflies.  You can do a meditative observation of any of these by sitting outdoors and watching those interactions.  What can you learn from them?

And we connect with our own breath.   Try this calming sequence for yourself, as you focus on the Element of Air:  Breathe in for four counts.  Hold for seven. Breathe out for eight.  Repeat at least five times, but ten is better.  Attune to the miracle of what Air means to your body, and give gratitude.  This breathing pattern can calm the nervous system and lower cortisol, leaving you more open to the magic of spring unfolding.

. . . and the Time of Spring

What are your earliest “signal plants” — those plants that tell you spring is coming, even when it is cold outside — maybe even in February?  Are they bulbs?  Aromatic mints?  Tree buds?  What else?  What is the earliest change you notice where you live that marks life returning, even when the world is still cold in any year?  How does the movie of spring unfold throughout the season as more creatures awake or return, others leave, and others push through the soil?  When does the first bud on the first tree open?  What kind of tree is it?  How are the weather and temperature different?  Where is the light on a fence or wall at the same time each day?  And where does the sun come up now?

These are things our not-to-distant ancestors would know in their sleep without noticing that they knew.   Make a point to deeply observe them and let them soak into your psyche, and you will find yourself drawn into this rhythm of the New, of Air, of  Beginnings, of Life Returning, in ways that you may not have experienced since childhood.  Let Spring breathe life, courage and hope into you after a year of unexpected and difficult transformations.  As you return to this Knowing,  you return to the collective knowing and wisdom held by of the web of life we are a part of, and can more easily receive its gifts.

Spring is a time to be a child again.
Remember.