Spring's beginnings

We experience Spring less as a turning of the seasons, and more a shifiting in our concsiousness. It is kind of like slowly waking up after a long deep sleep, and taking notice of the subtle changes in our environment, letting go of the contraction that goes hand-in-hand with Winter, and choosing more expansive activities and experiences. We do a lot of imagining and preparing for what is to come. Now is the time to to begin to take all of the dreaming and processing that occurred during the long dark winter, and bring it out of it's cozy little cave to let the Sun shine upon it.

So when Equinox arrives, it is kind of like a 'kick-off' celebration...that then lasts until Spring actually arrives (in the form of 'break-up').

We did get together with friends for an Equinox celebration, which included a variety of activities from making small bird feeders to a feast, with a little March Madness (College Basketball) thrown in for good measure. That was like the kick-off party, and now we will continue to celebrate the Coming of Spring.

At this point, our focus has been on the Return of the Light, feeding the birds, and re-connecting with Earth through discovery of tracks...we have found tracks from critters large and small...voles, squirrels, various birds, snowshoe hair, moose, and possibly lynx and fox. Oh, and lots of faeries.

We are always sure to leave blessings and offerings:

We were all fairly positive that this was some sort of throne for smallish faeries or some other sort of little people:

And this 'sculpture' created by Mother Nature really struck a chord in my heart:

That said, one of our Spring projects is to make a bird feeder to put our homemade suet in. The design we chose was inspired by our friends at Calypso Farm & Ecology Center.

Here Spider-dove shows off the new spade drill bit we got at the hardware store, along with the drill and the log we chose to use for the feeder:

Spider-dove took these next two photos of the drill-in-action:

Phase one of this project is complete, and the kids' interest shifts from drill to wood shavings:

And of course, no project would be complete without our playmobile family romping in the aftermath: