SENTIENT TIMES Feb/Mar 2003

The Yearly Round

By Richard Moeschl

February 1 in the Celtic calendar is what March 21 is in today’s secular calendar: the first day of spring.

February hardly seems spring-like, but spring it is. You can always tell by the light. It’s different in the spring. It has the clarity and freshness of a blue sky after a rain, revealing vistas that seem to go on forever.

Winter light is like striking a match in a darkened space. It suddenly brightens a small area for a brief moment until the flame extinguishes itself and the places it illumined become engulfed in darkness once again. Winter light is powerful, searing. But it is enveloped by its opposite. The proverbial light shining in the darkness which the dark cannot overpower. Spring light is subtler. It is warm—not hot. It glows with a gentleness that encourages, but does not command. The challenge that faces prognosticators on Groundhog’s Day is, just how strong is this new light? Is it strong enough to put the short days and long nights of winter behind us, or must we wait even longer?

There is a caution in the gait of the first days of spring. As the birthing time after the gestation of winter, it is full of days of fragile infancy. Of first steps. First glimpses of the world. Wordsworth has us arriving trailing clouds of glory behind us as we set foot on this strange new world. Even if we have been here many lives before, each rebirth, each start of a life is still new. We need the soft light of spring to shine upon our steps and upon the sights we will see along the way.

Infancy and childhood, which are under the aegis of the spring, are times of acclimation. As children, we learn how to stand, how to walk. Initially we draw our nourishment from our mother’s breasts, cradled in her arms. Little by little, we begin to eat the food that comes from our Mother Earth, while sitting alone in a chair.  

In time, we learn how to speak the language of those around us. We discover there are names for everything. We talk to plants, to dogs, to dolls, to pet turtles and we somehow understand their secret language.

There is so much to delight in. But there are also dangers. We can hurt our bodies and our feelings. So it is that we are protected in our early days. Watched over and guided with loving care. And all the while, we are learning. Taking in what we see, hear touch, smell, and feel with our hearts.

As de Chardin and others have said, we are spiritual beings experiencing a material existence. We’re getting to know the lay of the land, getting to know our way around. For most of our spring/childhood, we still have vestiges of those fabled clouds of glory trailing behind us, even if they have grown a bit threadbare over the years, like the shreds of a favorite blanket carried everywhere.

The infancy of the plant world is no less remarkable. The new shoots must learn the ways of the world too. How to draw sustenance from the ground, the rain and the Sun without being overpowered by any of them. How to dress like those of their kin. We often associate flowers with the spring, and rightly so. Yet it is the tender green sprout that best wears the face and color of early spring. There is something so tentative and ephemeral about those early leaves and stems. Surely plants come bearing clouds of glory too.

When the calendar moves us into spring again, we need not be infants to appreciate its wisdom. We can turn to that which is new and glorious in us, regardless how many springs we have seen come and go.

Perhaps that is why the Chinese New Year begins with the new moon in February and why the new year used to start in most of Europe between March 21 and 25. Perhaps too, that is why Earth Day found its way onto our calendars during March. In the old Roman calendar, February was the last month of the year. People spent the month purifying and preparing themselves for the new year that began with the spring in March. And when the Vernal equinox arrived on March 21, setting the days and nights in balance, there was no doubt whether the light had been able to outlast the darkness.

Richard Moeschl is an Ashland, Oregon. writer, educator and public lecturer on ancient and contemporary astronomy, the calendar, and the origin of seasonal festivals. He’s the author of Exploring the Sky: Projects for Beginning Astronomers and serves as founder and executive director of the nonprofit Horizon Institute, which provides opportunities for exploring scientific and spiritual perspectives.

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