Welcoming Spring with a Day of Gratitude
The energies of the Spring Equinox are high for four days before and four days after the peak occurs. Morning is the perfect time to begin your celebration.
As morning is the time of day for Wabun the Spiritkeeper of the East, why not greet Father Sun at dawn? We will be saying good bye to the season of Waboose, the White Buffalo, the Winter, the North, the lessons of Cleansing, Renewal, and Purification. We now welcome Dawn, Spring, the East, the Eagle, New Beginnings, and the Lessons of Clarity, Wisdom, and Illumination. This event begins the Budding Trees Moon and the time of Wabun.
I'd like to share a few of the Ceremonies we learned from Sun Bear and that we continue to perform on the first day of Spring. If you feel good about them, you are welcome to include some or all of them in your own Spring Celebrations.
We will begin on Vernal Equinox morning at sunrise with a Tobacco-Burning Ceremony, followed by a Sweat of Thanksgiving. We will spend the first round giving thanks for all the gifts, joys, lessons, etc. of Winter. During the second round we will give thanks for all the good things Spring brings to us. The third and fourth rounds honor summers and autumns, past and future.
The important focus in this Ceremony is that we do not concentrate on our needs and wants. This Thanks-Giving Ceremony is used to generate energy to give back to the Universe for the Great Spirit's gift of life to us. If you are not able to do the Sweat Ceremony, then expand the Tobacco-Burning Ceremony to include your prayers of thanksgiving.
Next we will go to our Earth Mound, which represents the Element Earth and the Earth Mother, and move the rock that we use to represent the head of the Turtle, from the North where it has rested during the time of Waboose to the East where it will stay during this season of Wabun.
Then we will go to our Gardens and bless them with Cornmeal and plant small Crystals at the four directions and in the Center. As women represent the fertility of the Mother Earth, the women are in charge of this Life-Giving Mother Earth Ceremony and sometimes do this Ceremony alone. In some native cultures, the women would go to the Garden and dance around it; dragging their clothes behind them to exchange the blessing of fertility with the Earth Mother.
After the Earth Garden has been blessed, we go to the Prayer Feathers that serve as the boundary markers of our land and there we will ask the Power of Spring to bring a renewal and a reawakening of the power of protection that we prayed for when we set them out at the time of Winter Solstice.
At the end of the day we enjoy a Feast, first preparing a Spirit Plate and then placing it outside, or burying it, or placing it in the Fire. This way the Spirits may partake of the essence of the food. As we come together to eat, we each share a bite of each food in celebration and thanksgiving for All Our Relations. We conclude our day with a Pipe Ceremony.
I hope this sharing of our plans for this Celebration has inspired, encouraged, or at least gently nudged you into planning your own welcoming-in of the energies of this season now and in the future.
Images courtesy of Wix, Unsplash, and Wind Daughter.
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