Equinox - It’s all about Balance
Photo - Tomoko-uji-eriuKj
It almost slips by unnoticed, but the day of the Spring Equinox is a great occasion. In many countries regarded as the beginning of Spring, for us in Ireland it’s the day when we have equal day and equal night and from today onward, we have days which are longer than the nights. Something indeed to celebrate.
Today, the sun is exactly over the equator and from today we get more sunlight each day while those in the Southern Hemisphere get less. They are heading into Winter while we are joyfully heading into Summer. Spring is here and the birds are singing their hearts out and busily making homes for themselves and their families. Daffodils are in full bloom everywhere and we are deeply grateful to have survived the winter. We start to wear brighter colours and although we may grumble about the dandelions, which have many health giving properties, we unconsciously react positively to their bright shining faces turned up to the sun.
In the busyness of this world we can easily knock ourselves out of balance – doing too much or too little, thinking too much or too little, sleeping more than we need or not enough. We live in a dualistic world, everything has it’s opposite – rich and poor, sweet and bitter, enslaved and free, and we easily slip out of balance, in our activities, in our eating or drinking. It’s lovely to enjoy clean windows for example but for some being ‘out of balance’ means not never cleaning the windows, for others it means being fanatical about them and the balance is enjoying looking through nice clean windows.
Equinox is all about Balance. It’s one of the two days (the Autumn Equinox being the other) when our days are in perfect balance with day and night being of equal length. Mother Nature does provide us with other moments of balance – those few glorious minutes of perfection and beauty at dawn as we await the appearance of the sun over the horizon; and again at dusk when the day becomes still again before descending into the heavier energy of the night. In Sanskrit this is called ‘Sattva’ meaning balance, harmony, goodness, while the fiery energy of daytime is called ‘rajas’ and the heavier energy of night-time is called ‘tamas’.
Today is a reminder to walk the middle path, to stay in balance, not to over or underdo anything. It’s a day to celebrate the end of winter and the arrival of Spring. It’s a nice day for a wedding ceremony being symbolic of the equal balance between partners. And it’s a time when we feel our hearts lift with the joy of the lengthening days. Exactly half way between Midwinter and Midsummer, half way between Imbolg (Spring) and Lá Bealtaine (Mayday) Equinox reminds us of the importance of constantly coming back to centre, back to being in Balance, just as Our Spiritual Earth constantly maintains herself in Perfect Balance.