“Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.” - Mary Oliver
A friend and mentor asked me yesterday — while on a hike to celebrate the Spring Equinox — what spring meant to me. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a hard question. As a midwesterner, spring was always a happy time, when the snow would melt and our shorts would come out of hiding as we wore them proudly on a brisk 50 degree (Fahrenheit) day. We weren’t all that connected to the equinox, but mostly just reacting as people that were ruled by our weather conditions.
When I moved west and lost the changing of all four seasons, I almost lost my connection to spring. While it is true that California has some beautiful flower blooms — pear trees in February, the poppies in March, jacaranda trees in April, or if we are in the midst of a superbloom — it isn’t really a place with an unmistakeable spring. When I moved here, it was 2014 and we were in the middle of a serious drought (when aren’t we?). As we moved into 2015, rain continued to be rare. The first year I remember noticing more rain wasn’t until the spring of 2020 — and that might have been because we were all trapped in our living quarters. And while we’re currently experiencing the wettest winter I’ve ever seen, it’s not lost on me that next year — and even later this year after a potentially hot summer — we could return to normalcy. I had to see spring in another way. I had to find the magic in it on my own, and connecting to the Equinox was how I did that.
The Spring, or Vernal, Equinox (Latin for “aequus” meaning equal and “nox” meaning night) begins on March 20 or March 21 and marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when the amount of daylight nearly equals the amount of nighttime, the sun reaching its highest point halfway between sunrise and sunset. It’s a holiday that has been celebrated for centuries, and big celebrations still happen annually in places like the ruins of Chichen Itza in the ancient Maya city in Mexico and at Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument of standing stones in England. In Japan, the first day of spring — Shunbun no Hi — is celebrated by tending to ancestors’ graves.
Nowruz — the Persian New Year — begins on the Spring Equinox, lasting for thirteen days, and has been celebrated by millions of people around the world for thousands of years. It was my first introduction to the Equinox. Nowruz is seen as a time for rebirth and renewal, when we begin to see growth in nature after harsh winter, inspiring us to declutter our homes and our lives as we prepare for the transition of the seasons.
There are many traditions before and during Nowruz, such as jumping over fire — chāhār shanbé sooree or Wednesday night soirée — on the last Tuesday before the equinox to purge yourself of the previous year’s negativity and khoone takoonee — literally meaning shaking of the house — in which you turn your house updside down by cleaning and decluttering so you can start the new year fresh. Sabzeh is grown by placing wheat, barley, mung bean or lentils in a dish with water, and the greens that sprout are placed onto what’s called the haft seen table. The sofreyé haft seen — “sofré” meaning spread and “haft seen” meaning seven seens, or the Persian letter for s — is one of the most important elements of the Persian holiday and serves as an altar. A tapestry is draped over a table and on top of it are the seven items that begin with the letter seen: seeb (meaning apple) symbolizes beauty and health, seer(garlic) represents medicine and good health, senjed (dried fruit) for love, somāgh (the spice sumac) symbolizing the color of sunrise, serké (vinegar) representing age and patience, sabzé (sprouts) representing new life, and samanoo (sweet pudding made from wheat germ) which symbolizes sweetness and affluence. You will also find goldfish, painted eggs, a mirror, candlesticks, sweets, and a book by the Persian author and poet Hafez. When the clock strikes on the exact time of the equinox — this year is 2:24pm pacific time — the family gathers at the haft seen and wishes everyone a happy Nowruz by saying Nowruz Mobārak.
I have loved learning the traditions of Nowruz and participating in the celebration of the Vernal Equinox because it has given me a chance to reconnect with the earth in ways I hadn’t in the past. It’s very easy to see things as we want to, and in the midwest, all we can think about is when we can once again go out and enjoy the warmer weather. But in living that way for so long, I had forgotten the most important thing we can do as humans — connecting with nature and the land.
I spent the day before the equinox hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains. We spent time with our shoes off, slipping our feet into the mud and the streams of water that have formed from all the rain we’ve gotten recently. We rooted ourselves in nature, climbing trees and smelling plants as we walked by them. We gave thanks to the land by planting flowers and leaving offerings, and my friend led a QiGong practice — a system of body postures, movements, and breath work centered around meditation — that we did barefoot.
Life can go by us so quickly, and it’s very easy to lose ourselves in the chaos of it all. We forget to breathe through moments, focusing instead on longterm goals rather than enjoying the journey of the day-to-day. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Nowruz, it’s that tradition matters, as well as our relationships with family, friends, and nature. So each year, I dedicate time to enjoy the Spring Equinox by being grateful for the past year, by honoring the past and letting go of all the negativity that might have existed in that space, by giving thanks to the earth for being our home, and by decluttering my personal space as well as my mind in order to move forward feeling lighter and more refreshed.
Finding gratitude is how we make sense of the challenging moments we face in life. No matter what, we must always remember to slow down, to stop and smell the roses. Happy Vernal Equinox, and happy Nowruz to all those that celebrate.
How do you celebrate spring or the Vernal Equinox? Share it with me in the comments!
If you’re curious, you can find more information about Nowruz here.
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