Mindfully Stylish 🌷

Forays Into Feelings & Fashion By A Thrifty Princess 🌷

Something is Stirring… England On the Cusp of Spring & A New Sense of Awakening

2–4 minutes

*The first blooms in London, March 2022*

I awoke this morning happy that the skylight above my bed was filled with that hazy hue of sunshine which always promises it to be a beautiful day. Glancing at my reader, I realised it was the Spring Equinox come on 20.3.25 this year and things are shifting in the air. Last night, I felt who or what I can only describe as the most powerful presence with me as my anxiety reached its peak. I have felt an enveloping of this invisible embrace a few times in my life and always when I have needed guidance most. I am incredibly grateful for that. For every comforting divinity that I have been blessed enough to meet, I have sought to honour them somehow and the very best way I have known how to do this is through my writing. So I dedicate this post to the one my favourite writer Anne Lamott calls “the Great Cosmic Muffin… or for ease we could just say ‘God’”. Perhaps my entire blog will be a dedication and celebration to this love one day. For now, I am starting here. Bear with me on this journey.

*Spring comes to the pub on the way to meet my friends, London, March 2022*

The Spring Equinox is when the Sun sits directly above the equator. When this occurs, day and night on Earth are of equal length ~ the word ‘equinox’ literally meaning ‘equal night’ in Latin. Pagans all over the world celebrate the festival ‘Ostara’ on the Spring Equinox, which is the name of an ancient pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess, who also goes by ‘Eostre’. She was known as the bringer of Spring, a figure of Mother Nature’s renewal. Interestingly, this goddess’s name ‘Eostre’ is also thought by some to be where the name of the Christian festival ‘Easter’ comes from. Pagan festivals were often incorporated into the Christian calendar and this is perhaps one example of how the connection has survived. For it was the great English monk, author and scholar the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) who recorded the month that Christians celebrated Christ’s resurrection as ‘Eosturmonath’ in England, which could translate to ‘Eostre’s month’ in Old English. Some scholars argue that the name stuck in the English-speaking world for this Christian festival of rebirth.

*A veritable feast… falafel wraps and white wine on the beach in Brighton, March 2021*

Looking back at my pictures from this special time of year ~ from 2020 to present day ~ I am pleasantly surprised at how I seem to have honoured the Spring Equinox in some way each time and gathered a photograph or two to remember it by. And so here they are ~ little snapshots or memories of Springs past and present to welcome in this new season. As I walked with my sister in the park this afternoon amongst the daffodils and crocuses, between students playing football and tending to barbeques, I realised that maybe, just maybe, I would also be okay. And that gives me such great joy to say.