Seeking Balance at the Spring Equinox

Happy Spring Equinox!

Here in the Brandywine Valley the air is cool, well cold actually. And after days of  gloomy, rainy weather, the sun is shining in fits and starts. Nasty cold weather aside, this time of balance means that the days will (finally!) be longer than the nights--that our region of the Earth is in the time of birthing and rebirth.

Last year's plants and discarded carrot and potato peels have turned into rich fertile compost.  This weekend we'll turn the earth and spread it on the garden to enrich new plants. Despite unseasonably cold weather, the green spears of daffodils bend in the chilly breeze and nine growing chicks peep and peck in the big brooder box in the corner of our living room.

As the spring equinox marks a brief space of balance  (when the Earth is pointed neither away from or towards the sun),  this is is a great time to examine what may need balancing in our own lives. 

This year our family project has been to balance our debt to Mother Earth by reducing, reusing and recycling as much as we can. For the next two weeks we are monitoring our daily water use to get a better handle on just how much we use wisely and how much we use wastefully. Our longer range project involves raising nine pullets (hens) to aid in our effort to reduce what goes into the trash can.

The chicks are part of our effort bring our family's consumption more in balance with our environmental concerns.   Sometime towards the end of April the "young ladies" move from their brooder box to their outdoor digs.

Besides providing eggs, their contribution to our recycling effort, involves consuming any food scraps that we can't compost. 

On a more personal level, this is the time of year when I seek balance.  Like most people following a nature based spirituality, I try to incorporate the spiritual into my mundane life  as much as I can--i.e. cleaning with positive energy, being mindful of my daily actions.  But there are activities like meditating, yoga, walking in the woods and writing--that are essential to my well being.

Yet the activities that feed my soul are the ones I'm most likely to neglect.  I have to shop, clean,  do office work, run kids to activities and do the all of the regular necessary activities that crowd ours lives.   A good mother always puts her family first...right?  But what does  that really mean?  If I  don't balance my needs against the needs of my family what  we all get is a tenser and lest healthy person.  Where's the balance in that?

This  Spring Equinox,  as our family strives for balance,  I will also strive to even out the scales and attend to my physical and spiritual needs so that I can attend to the mundane with  more vitality and enthusiasm.

May we all find the balance we need in our lives to carry us into the light.

Springtime blessings!