Spring Equinox 2025: Imagine Equal
The word equinox comes from the Latin for “equal night.” It’s the point when the sun crosses the earth’s equator. In the northern hemisphere at this time of year, we celebrate the vernal or spring equinox; while the southern half of the world celebrates the autumnal equinox. On equinox, night and day are roughly equal all over the planet. Twelve hours of darkness, twelve hours of light. Another way of describing this: equinox is the only time when the northern and southern hemispheres are equally illuminated.
A moment of illumination; a moment of balance. What does equinox (north and south) have to teach us at this time in the earth’s story?
When I used to lead spirituality workshops, I would often start with a meditation called Flame of Love, probably an adaptation of a Buddhist practice. It begins where one is, in one’s body and one’s surroundings: a room, a backyard, a lake. And gradually moves the heart outward in a spiral across city lights or rural skies dark with stars; one’s region and landforms, rivers and lakes; one’s country, across borders, then multiple countries; over continent and continents, oceans, and finally the whole earth held within one’s mind. Sometimes I would simply play a short NFB video called Cosmic Zoom that does the same thing starting from the cells of the body and “zooming” out to the universe and back again.
It is worth pausing to consider on this day the equal light and darkness that falls on the whole earth, our enemies and our friends, familiars and strangers alike, the light a gift to us all. On all the suffering places of the world: Palestine and Israel, Russia and Ukraine, Somalia, the Congo, South Sudan, Haiti. On the peoples of Syria, Myanmar (Rohingya) and so many others forced from home to wherever they find themselves including those camped on the highstreets and byways of our own cities.
We each stand equal on this day in the gift of day and night. No one more or less. No one controls the sun in this universe. There are no borders on it.
Maybe if we stand in that insight/in this moment, we can remember who we are. Remember our suffering land, what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls the “more than human world.” Imagine the forests rising up, the oceans, inland lakes, the mountain ranges, prairie, steppe, and deserts. Imagine the wind. Imagine the volcanoes, earthquakes, clouds and storms, tornados and cyclones, so much more powerful than the voices of might and chaos ascendent in our human world right now (voices within us and those surrounding us). Maybe we can imagine equal.
18 Comments
Susan Beach
March 19, 2025Lovely, Audrey. Maybe we can imagine equal. Yes. A moment of balance. Yes… a moment of being the stillpoint in our turning world. Thank you.
Audrey
March 20, 2025Thank you, Susan, and peace to you in the greening of things.
Kate
March 20, 2025Thank you, Audrey for this moment. (And for Cosmic Zoom.)
Audrey
March 20, 2025Thanks for being there.
Faith Fernalld
March 20, 2025With all the inequalities in the world, it’s comforting to think of the equality of light today. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Audrey
March 20, 2025Yes, the more-than-human world is like that. Never discriminating. Thank you for reading.
Naomi McIlwraith
March 20, 2025kinanâskomitin mistahi, Audrey, for this moving meditation on the gifts of equal day and night, equally short and long light, gifts from the more than human world.
Audrey
March 20, 2025Oh, you’re so welcome. What a gift we have on this Earth!
Henny Vroege
March 21, 2025Thank you, good friend. The more-than-human world – yes.
Audrey
March 21, 2025Isn’t that great? Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass. Thanks!
M.J.Thibodeau - art in clay name is jano
March 23, 2025Nature of wind, of water, of fire, of clay we are.
Audrey
March 23, 2025Thank you, Jano, for that essence.
Linda Bumstead
March 24, 2025Thanks for your positive message, Audrey. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine equality or balance in a world that seems to be spinning out of control. I found Cosmic Zoom interesting. I’ve heard quite a few geese recently so spring might be around the corner.
Audrey
March 29, 2025Yes, signs of spring. I’ve spotted baby snowshoe hares along the edge of Rat Creek (ravine).
Carolyn Pogue
March 25, 2025Yes and amen. Thank you Audrey.
Audrey
March 29, 2025Thank you, Carolyn.
Rev. Audrey Brooks
March 28, 2025I like your meditation, Audrey. We have them regularly at our Unitarian church.
Some haven’t been able to settle into them, and ” let go” of the bonds that tie one to the concrete silos we inhabit. Others of us, over time, found we have become more real in spirit and body, as we open to the song of the great universe where freedom waits. Hugs, Audrey 2
Audrey
March 29, 2025It is a song isn’t it. Thank you, Audrey Too (and fellow songstress).