Archived Weblog Entry

[Previous entry: "3/18/02 - Survival"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "3/22/02 – Speaking In the Flow"]

04/11/2002 Archived Entry: "3/20/02 - Spring"

Spring. Today is the Vernal Equinox, the first day of spring. I have been celebrating what I have come to call the Four Corners of the year since 1966 or ’67. One of the very first events I took part in organizing, in the Summer of Love, was a Spring Equinox celebration in Golden Gate Park in 1967.

I was involved in many such events over the next couple of years – almost all of the free concerts in Golden Gate Park & the Panhandle in 1967 & 1968. Then, in the seventies, the 3HO community would get together for Summer & Winter Solstice, and for the first ten years or so, I was able to set up a course with Yogi Bhajan in the Bay Area on the Spring & Fall Equinoxes.

I have developed a kind of superstition around the Four Corners of the year, which has a profound influence on me. I hold the belief that what happens on the equinox, or solstice, is an indicator of what will be going on for the next quarter. Such as: what is going through my mind; what issues I am dealing with; whether I take time off to celebrate/meditate; whether I work all day; my relations with my wife & others in my life; my morning sadhana. For the planet, it is whatever is going on – what major events are unfolding. I, therefore, generally pay particular attention to what is going on in my mind and in the world around me on these occasions. Perhaps a function of holding that superstition, is that doing so requires of me that I pay attention to the equinoxes & solstices, which is a positive result, as I do wish to honor the cycles of our planet.

The equinox is when day and night is of equal length, light and dark is balanced. Beginning with spring, the days will be longer than night. Each day will be longer than the day before, until Summer Solstice, when we have the longest day, and the shortest night. However, this does not feel like a year in which light will be triumphing over darkness as we move towards summer. Not at least in the larger more visible patterns.

There are, however, new sprouts appearing which perhaps we can choose to look at as harbingers of spring. Every day (almost) for the past month, I have been learning of another group of people who are working consciously in the area of spirituality and social change. One can clearly see that, as a species, we are groping towards that work which has the potential to shift our collective consciousness. I do see all these new efforts as a kind of flowering, an effervescence of the human spirit.

I am involved in conversation to bring a number of these efforts together: to see whether we can help one another; to get to know one another; to network where possible. At times it seems that our hopes are as fragile as they were in the Lord of the Rings, when all rode on the deeds of two seemingly insignificant creatures in the lands of the Dark Lord.

I will celebrate spring today, by driving down to the site for the Memorial Weekend Workshop, which we need to do in order to check out meeting and break out spaces. It is out in the country, and perhaps we will take a moment to visit the ocean when we get to Santa Cruz. We are fortified with the excuse that we do not wish to drive through San Jose’s evening rush hour, and so must spend time at the beach, to wait until the traffic passes.

Many years ago, when in Hawaii and taking up with a great Kahuna (Daddy or Father Bray), I learned somewhat about how the old Hawaiians would prepare for their festivals. How even the person with the smallest task, gathering palm fronds for the event, would be fully part of the sacredness of the day. How that person would apologize to the gods of the palm trees for the presumption that they knew better what to do with the palm fronds than did the tree that was growing them.

Sacredness – may we remember to see all life as sacred. May we walk in sacredness.