Sowing Seeds of Hope

A Spring Equinox Message + Ritual

Hope. That is a feeling that feels very far away these days. Grief, horror, shock, anger, fear, worry, and despair are all much closer to what I’ve been experiencing this fallow season. It has been difficult to see the beauty or the goodness in the world. A friend recently shared one of the most astute quotes from one of my most beloved authors:  

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”  The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien 

As the frigid darkness of Winter wanes to the rising energy of Spring I realize that collectively we’re in a state of co-mingled grief and love, darkness and light, emptiness and fullness, fallow and growth. Winter and Spring. The Spring Equinox is simultaneously a period of balance on the solar calendar, when day and night become equal around the globe, as well as a tipping point when light overcomes darkness to begin a new season of growth. The timing of Nature is impeccable and the message validating. 

There is hope. If it cannot be felt or found, then it must be cultivated. There are few acts more full of hope than beginning a garden during a time of plague and warfare. The very act of sowing seeds is a courageous statement that the earth will bloom again. Holding this belief close to my heart I converted my dinner table into an indoor potting bench for the day so I could get to work sowing seeds for my Spring garden.

Mid March, near the Spring Equinox, is the ideal time to start seeds indoors. If you’d like to learn more about sowing your own seeds, join a gardening workshop hosted by Brianne.