Spring Equinox 2020

Debra Redalia

An edible borage flower— left over from last year—made it through the winter and popped up in my garden already.

Today is Spring Equinox, the halfway point between Summer Solstic and Winter Solstice.

This year the Spring Equinox falls on 19 March. This is earlier than it has been in more than 100 years. If you want to read more about this, see THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANAC: First Day of Spirng 2020.

The Spring Equinox is the time of year when winter is over but summer hasn't started, so there is an element of balance between to opposites. For this reason, Larry and I once got married on a Spring Equinox because of this aspect of balance.

This year the Spring Equinox is strange. Instead of being a celebration of the outburst of new life, our Northern California weather has been colder than it's been all winter. We had out first winter storm with snow in the Sierra Nevada ski resorts last weekend, and it's been raining here off an on all week. Even today the sun and cloulds are alternating almost moment by moment.

And the world itself is also out of balance with the threat of Covid-19 figthting the very lives of many people in a variety of different ways. At the same time, this disruption is opening the way to a new way of life—like winter giving way to spring, an old way of life is giving way to something new and unknown and different.

But new life is on it’s way. in our garden, strawberries and fruit trees are blooming, and I have new chives and borage flowers already in my herb barrel.

Larry and I are going for a walk as soon as I finish writing this post and sending out the newsletter. Even though we're sheltered-in-place, because we live out in the country we can walk quite a ways without encountering another human being, so it qualifies as keeping social distance.

I'm feeling the emergence of Life today and am looking forward to what is coming next.