What exactly is the Spring Equinox?
At its scientific basis, the spring equinox is the very day the sun aligns with the equator and the short winter days even out into even days and nights. It the marks the official day of spring. Old traditions/rituals were to honour the goddesses/gods during this time and can still be seen today. For example Easter (Eoster) originally was a pagan festival which was never dropped and is still widely celebrated by Christians. The issue for me as a non religious Australian, Ive been following mainstream traditions purely for the commercial values with not much knowledge or belief as to why.
In attempt to infuse more meaningful ritual and traditions into our family, I have been following my ancestry which is entwined in anglo Saxon - germanic, Celtic and Mediterranean heritage.
So it has been delightful for me to trace and learn about the traditions and the beliefs behind them. The idea of celebrating seasons and dieties crosses many cultural beliefs that are entangled with many parallels in story lines also is so fascinating.
Anyway back to Spring -
In the southern hemisphere celebrating Easter in May this does not exactly make sense. In the Northern hemisphere, spring is being celebrated while the southern hemisphere shifts to autumn. So essentially Easter should be celebrated in September in the Southern Hemisphere. From my reading, Christian held on to the Eoster Festivities because it was a good opportunity to spread the word of jesus. Eggs, hares are symbolic of rebirth due to the abundance amount of them during the spring season. Chocolate, represented the earth and soil in which growth and life starts. A more commercialised Easter began in the 19th Century when mailing post cards became cheaper and greeting cards would have illustrations of Hares with decorated tiled eggs on them. I am not so keen on breaking my kids hearts while everyone celebrates the Easter bunny returning to all the children every year so we will keep along with the Australian Northern Hemisphere Christian Festivities, but this year we held our own celebrations for the spring equinox. The wonderful thing, the conversations that came up during this celebration covered topics from Earth and Space, Life cycles, Ancient History, Civics and Humanities. An unschooling Gold Mine.
How we celebrated the Spring Equinox as a family
The week leading up to the spring equinox I gathered supplies and prepared a few things for the day. These were.
Gathering supplies
Pinwheels ( the element of air is associated with spring )
kites
egg dye ( we used natural food dye )
candles
crystals
flowers
egg custard ( keep the empty shells for planting seeds)
shortbread cookie ingredients
potting mix and pumpkin seeds
A story on the Greek Goddess Persephone
Spring playlist
We prepared the eggs, flower cookies and egg custard a day before the rest.
On the Day
We spent the morning making pinwheels which were super easy to do. filled the empty egg shells with soil and a pumpkin seed. We will enjoy watching those grow over the next two seasons.
Set up a picnic with fresh flowers, the dyed eggs, candles crystals and our new pinwheels. I stuck the pinwheels in the ground while the lovely September breeze spun them.
I cast a circle with song dance and offerings for our ancestral guides welcoming their presence to guide us in our growth and spirit for the new year, and then danced to our spring playlist. The kids really enjoyed this. We snacked on our egg based treats while I narrated the story of Persephone afterwards. The children were so enchanted with the story, and we continued to just enjoy the sun, laying and basking listening to music. We closed the circle and the children were feeling warm and jumped into the very fresh spring water in our pool. Kite flying was on the agenda for the afternoon however I dozed off after our swim, we will save that for another spring day.
Hello, World!