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Spring is easily my favorite time of year. Fall is a very close second and no one can deny the enchantment of the newly crisp autumn air and the turning and falling of the leaves. But for me it is the bursting color and rebirth of spring that enchants and excites me the most. Being born in April, perhaps I have something of a natural bias.

In my nearly thirty-three years on Earth, this spring is by far the one I have looked forward to the most. The past year of my life, and especially the fall and winter months, have been the heaviest, darkest and most anguished ever so my very soul has been absolutely parched for the spring rains and fresh, bright blossoms. The ice and snow have melted and are cascading in rivers of renewal and revitalization.

Tomorrow, March 20, is an especially powerful and charged Equinox as it coincides with the full Moon in Libra. Fire is very much the element of spring, being the element of Aries and aptly representing the sparking, igniting new life bursting out everywhere. The light and warmth begin to return and the Martian leader and initiator of the zodiac leaps eagerly into action, blazing the trail for the new year.

The winter solstice has its potential as a type of new-year marker, but the days are still cold and dark and the thaw is still a long way off. Yet in terms of both the seasons’ cycle and the zodiac, the spring equinox is arguably THE true, natural new year. This awakening time is far more ideal for setting goals and intentions, for clearing away those last cobwebs of winter and the heaviness of hibernation.

We don’t have the luxury of literally hibernating like bears, or even as our distant ancestors used to, but there are parts of us that we let sleep; goals, hobbies, intentions, and pursuits that are more likely to lay dormant during the colder half of the year. What in your life is stirring from its slumber?

The Sun is exalted in Aries, meaning its energy is best expressed and manifested through this sign. What better way to start the year? Where else would the Sun shine at its best than within that first spark of spring? And what could be even more perfect still, on this quarter day when the light and dark are again equal, than the fiery equinox Sun shining directly onto the airy, balancing Libra Moon?

The image of the bellows in a forge comes to mind. The Air, the breath, blows and arouses the coals within the firepot, where a balance must be maintained for the ideal conditions for various kinds of work. Is a high, hot flame required, or a lower, steadier burn? What is it that you want to create and cultivate this year? What do you want to forge? Look back over the past six months or even a full year. What kind of crucible have you endured to get here, or are you perhaps still enduring?

A crucible is defined literally as a heat-resistant container in which metals and/or other substances are melted down, as in smithing or in chemistry, and figuratively as a very challenging time or severe trial that acts as a refining or hardening process. In both definitions, it is a tool of creation.

So this year, between the opposition of the Aries Sun and Libra Moon – doubly fiery masculinity and harmonious emotional femininity - I see a potent, elemental forge of creation in which balanced emotions and life-supporting nurturing must work together with passion, action and the sparks of initiation. Inspiration and illumination are everywhere now! Both Aries and Libra are cardinal signs, so this is a time of beginnings in every way imaginable.

Aries is all about the Self and personal identity. Aries is “I Am”. It begins with you. Work on yourself, forge yourself, create and define yourself and then, and only then, can you fulfill whatever it is that you’re here to do and to help others with. This is a great time to be selfish! The healthy, necessary kind of selfish in which you make sure that you are taken care of so that you are able to help others.

The Tolkien nerd in me immediately thinks of Legolas urging a battered Aragorn to rest once he arrives Helm’s Deep, saying “You’re no good to us half-dead.” No one is good to anyone half-dead! Or half-broken, half-asleep, half-healed, half-true or half-assed.

So tend to your forge. Let your emotions fuel your creativity and your passion, but don’t let them flare those flames up beyond control. Be smart with your feelings and think about how others feel. The Moon is emotions and intuition but Libra is Air – intellect, thought, reasoning. So there is a double theme of balance. First the heart and the head must be weighed against each other, and then together against motivation and action.

If Aries is “I am” and Libra is “I balance”, then an ideal mantra, affirmation or helpful reminder for this equinox, and therefore moving on through the year, is simply – “I AM BALANCED”.

Read the full article, including the equinox/full moon water oracle reading, here

Putting up the Samhain lights yesterday, I found an egg that had lain undiscovered since our egg-hunt last spring Evenday.

Not to worry: it was a plastic egg. (For just this reason, we don't hide the real ones.) Orange plastic, in fact, with a black dragonfly embossed on it.

Interesting, that.

Rattling around inside, like the yolk of a dried-out old pysanka, was a chocolate-covered malted milk ball.

I ate it, of course. A little oxidized, maybe, but for a moment, I closed my eyes and savored the sweetness anyway.

The trees are wearing their autumn gold; the ground is carpeted in yellow. Samhain is coming.

Back in the 70s, I was a good, doctrinaire Diet for a Small Planet vegetarian.

Frances Moore Lappé's epoch-making cookbook was based on the notion of protein complementarity: in order to get a complete protein, you need both beans and grains. Eaten together, you get more nutritional benefit from the combination than you would if you ate them separately.

So, religiously, I ate my beans and rice together at meal after meal after meal.

Since then, we've learned more about how the body handles these things. In fact, the body and its digestion is more flexible than we used to think. If you eat, say, your whole wheat toast for breakfast and your lentil soup at lunch, you'll still get the full protein benefit from the combination.

And that's another thing that the tribe does for us.

Fall is my favorite season.  The cooler weather (not that we've had much of that yet) is a relief after the stifling heat of summer.  The colors, the sense of the season all appeal to me.  This fall I've been so busy writing and editing, I've not had any time for much else.  

My harvest is my writing.  I'm focusing on getting the stories in my head down on paper so I can share them.  It's not tomatoes or corn or pumpkins.  I stopped gardening years ago when my legs stopped working well.  But it's still a harvest for me.  

In the old days, people would hibernate somewhat in the winter.  Tools would be repaired, activities went from tending the earth to resting.  Animals were tended but outside work was minimal mostly because the weather prohibited it.  Though there were worries about food and fuel lasting through the dark times, it was a quieter more restful time of the year.

Now we don't have the luxury of staying indoors by a warm fire.  We also don't have to worry about food or fuel being scarce.  The frenetic pace of life continues even when we get a snowstorm dropping inches of snow on us.  We wait until the plows dig us out and continue with our lives.  Rarely do we take a day or week or more to stay at home, cuddle in and ignore the fast pace life we normally have.  

I’m sorry to say I went black Friday shopping.  My daughter wanted to go and she dragged me along.  I didn’t mind the craft stores but the others were too much.  Winter is a time to go within and reflect on what’s needed.  Black Friday shopping is definitely not anywhere near an internal reflective state.

While one of my daughters was home for Thanksgiving we went and did things almost non-stop.  We ran errands, cooked food, went to a movie.  It was go go go from the time she got home.  It made me cranky. 

In my day job, I've been struggling with a few issues.  The stress has been higher than normal making me fall into old bad habits.  I'd love to say I recognized this immediately and countered it but of course I didn't.  I got in a rut.

As I recognized (finally) what I was doing and the rut I'd been spinning my wheels in, I returned to techniques I knew worked.  Stress is bad for my gout.  It makes it flare up and cause me a great deal of pain.