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Eelco
20th March 2014, 04:44
Can You feel it?

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WIth Love
Eelco

Cearna
20th March 2014, 05:40
Hi Eelco, good to see you back with us again, nope sorry, can't feel spring in the air. Saw my first sign of frost a couple of days ago and the trees are dropping their leaves. We even took a water bottle to bed the other night, but I love autumn as much as spring. When I travelled to Europe in springtime, I couldn't believe the signs of growth there, grass growing so fast, trees producing new leaves, that crispness coming into the air, wonderful. Our trees, the native ones, don't usually drop their leaves, so even if all the introduced plants, do their thing , the impact was never so great as your spring was to me.

Seikou-Kishi
20th March 2014, 06:48
Hi Eelco, good to see you back with us again, nope sorry, can't feel spring in the air. Saw my first sign of frost a couple of days ago and the trees are dropping their leaves. We even took a water bottle to bed the other night, but I love autumn as much as spring. When I travelled to Europe in springtime, I couldn't believe the signs of growth there, grass growing so fast, trees producing new leaves, that crispness coming into the air, wonderful. Our trees, the native ones, don't usually drop their leaves, so even if all the introduced plants, do their thing , the impact was never so great as your spring was to me.

But you're down south... Spring shouldn't be in the air lol.

Here, Spring is quite literally in the air — or rather, air is in the Spring. For me, Spring is the season best attuned with the element of air. That crispness that is so delicious in Spring, bracing with the bite of Winter that remains... it speaks of the invigoration of life as animals come out of their rest (whether a hibernation or not) and set about producing the next generation. At the same time, all those plants which had receded into their roots in watery Autumn to wait out the frigidity of Winter begin to awaken as spring winds blow fresh life into the world and the world awakens with renewed verdancy. Spring is a time of great upwelling, like a bloom of smoke. Of course, that idea is inherent in the word: the season is so called because everything springs into new life. The original name for Spring (lencten) lives with us still as the name of the Christian holiday period Lent and referred to the lengthening of daylight hours.

I very much enjoy the quarter and cross-quarter days. In planetary terms, Spring in a general sense as the whole season begins in dusty Mercury* and passes into jubilant Jupiter, but the vernal equinox in particular is of the nature of vibrant and energetic Uranus, overflowing in all quarters with fresh vigour. It's a time of unrestrained growth when everything reaches skyward. As Autumn calls us to bring our focus inwards into our own noumenal world and we bring our attention close to nurture the seed within us which sleeps through the cold, dark and earthen Winter, Spring brings us back out and spurs us on to new endeavours. I see in the wheel of the year a map for human progress: in the yang seasons we go about the world and seek out new experiences and ideas, and in the yin months, we nurture the seeds we've sown in Spring and Summer. In that way, we progress a little at a time as the years pass by. What begins as a conscious effort becomes internalised and we turn good, conscious actions into virtuous instincts. We take the knowledge we have gained and become familiar with it and see it mature into understanding.

I've always been very attuned to the changing seasons, and each of them has a magical feeling that suffuses the very tissues of my body. The magic of the yang months is light, bright and buoyant, while the magic of the yin months is deep, restful and calm. The feelings of Spring and Autumn, which seem to combine the flavours of Summer and Winter in separate, opposite and complimentary patterns seem all the more complex because they are processes or gradations. To use analogies first found in Sir James George Frazier's the Golden Bough, and elaborated upon in Robert Graves' The White Goddess, they are the times of the year at which the throne of nature passes between the Oak and Holly Kings.

*Mercury as the beginning of Spring (in Imbolc) is fitting when we consider Mercury in the guise of Hermes Psychopompos, the entity which leads souls between the world of the living (the summery half of the year) and the world of the dead (the wintry half). Compare with Lughnasadh/Lammas, of the nature of Pluto, which marks the point at which Autumn begins. One is the the leader of souls connecting the world of the living with the world of the dead, the other is the god of the underworld who alone has authority over the passage of souls between worlds. These two holidays, at opposite ends of the year, are the "hermaphroditic" holidays. Of course, I do not relay these myths and ideas as established facts, I only offer them as illustrations of the natures of the changing seasons.

Eelco
20th March 2014, 06:55
The dutch call spring Lente. the e pronaunced as in hey or lay...

with love
Eelco

Sooz
20th March 2014, 07:24
Being in Oz, I'm just glad to **** off summer - the high temps and humidity is doing me in. I'm over it already. It's not until end of March or even April, that it starts to get cooler.

Then it's only a couple of months of cool weather before Mr Sun bobs up his evil head again.

I want a very cold winter; boots, scarves, hats, hot soup and cooking curry on the weekends.

Thunderstorms, heaters on and all the rest of it....

Bring on Winter...;)

Moonlight
21st March 2014, 00:40
Spring is here, but the weather seems to have forgotten... We've had a couple of mornings in the -20C again this week. Today, a mix of snow and rain which makes for a very nice slush mixture. More snow coming for the weekend.... I've got the winter blues.

But ! the sun is much, much warmer and the energy is bursting... I've been quite undisciplined this week, fooling around and joking all day! hehe... spring is coming no mater what !

So there Mr. Winter... :onthequite:

BabaRa
21st March 2014, 18:52
The past 3 months I feel as if I live in the Land of Eternal Spring. It's been perfect weather, sunny, the rain comes mostly at night (although we need more of it!)

Of course, everyone keeps saying: we're going to pay for this, summer will be brutally hot and our fire season will be worse.

I keep saying: let's just keep it coming by expanding it. Why not? (She says with fingers crossed)