Spring Again – When do we give thanks?
So it’s spring again. The Vernal Equinox has come and gone. The snow has gone and gone and never returned, and the rains have been positively monsoon-like. But it’s spring. Officially. In point of fact, there has been no discernible difference in weather here since January. It might have been spring then. Nobody would have noticed if they’d been hibernating and woken up early. But the deniers will continue to insist we’re not raping our planet and/or our environment. Normal climate shift they say. Or it’s actually getting cooler despite the fact that it’s actually getting warmer. Spring in February might be telling evidence to those capable of rational thought, but then I give people too much credit at times.
My Norse ancestors lived through climate change. Well, better to say no one individual did. But it was the Medieval Warming Period that made the so-called “Viking Age” possible. And it was another climate shift, the “Little Ice Age” that saw it’s end by squeezing the life out of the Greenland settlements. If the Vinland settlement would have taken, we can rest assured that it would have come to an end as well. It simply wasn’t possible to keep up any level of commerce under such conditions. When Europeans again sailed across the Atlantic they would do so further south.
Ancient peoples, without calendars to consult, were forced to depend upon observable data. Weather conditions, positions of stars, etc. They’d have certainly noticed that though it looked and felt like spring, it could not possibly BE spring. But is spring an arbitrary demarcation or is it more flexible than that? What, after all, sets spring apart from the other seasons? Things grow. But things don’t start automatically growing on the Spring Equinox. If thawing occurs earlier, or if the ground never really froze in the first place, you’re going to have a possibility of early planting. It seems it would be more accurate to say “spring comes when spring comes.” I think our eminently practical Norsemen would have seen the sense in this.
I doubt it matters much to the gods when we celebrate the earth’s bounty. What is important is that we celebrate it, whenever Spring actually arrives. The Vernal Equinox is in general as good as any date. A nice official date for a celebration. But in a state of nature, that is, a life which is close to the earth and to the seasons and their effects, I think it makes sense to celebrate when it is appropriate to celebrate. The calendar may say one thing, the stars may give us a sign, but what really matters is when we can plant our crops, when the earth begins to blossom after the long (but getting shorter) night of winter. We have to be practical. I think our gods would expect us to be.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson is the author of A Heathen’s Day, which since 2005 has addressed the life and thoughts of a modern day Heathen. He is also the founder of the Mos Maiorum Foundation (www.mosmaiorum.org) which is dedicated to the study and support of Paganism as ethnic religion and writes for PoliticusUSA (www.politicususa.com) 
Spring does indeed come when it comes. I celebrate spring, though not with any ceremony. I take that first, truly beautiful day off (generally happens in April around here) and spend the day enjoying the soft, almost sensual, quality the air has, the smell of the renewing earth, the pretty flowers all abloom, and the feel of the sun. It’s a balm on my soul, in all honesty.
To me, spring feels like hope.
Celebrating spring is celebrating life. Even the Christians know that, try as they might to bury it in meaningless rituals. Your Norse ancestors probably had more fun celebrating spring, though I wouldn’t really know.
I think that’s a wise way of doing it – taking the first beautiful day. I love how spring feels too though I suspect this year there won’t be one day where it suddenly feels like spring. I’ve already been out doing landscaping, digging up some old flowers and bushes where I want to plant something else. I like to do that before things start blooming and things are already turning green. Funny to celebrate life by killing some plants but they were ugly plants. I’m sure even an Elf would agree
Oddly enough, I was thinking earlier this morning about all of our religious systems being basically interpretive frameworks that we build around our lived experiences… and the equinoxes and solstices serve the same function. We’ve had daffodils and dogwoods blooming for a while already down here, and I put in the new garden bed this past weekend and transplanted day lilies; there’s no question in my mind that spring had already sprung.
The equinoxes are more than notes on the calendar. While it’s true that many plants respond merely to weather conditions, there is a host of plants which measure and respond to day length. These species will flower, despite the cold, and others will refuse to flower, despite the warmth, until they receive the appropriate number of hours of daylight (or dark) exposure.
…something to add to the mix when thinking about spring.
Thanks Morning Angel, You’re right, of course, and I should clarify my previous comment a bit… what I was shooting at was that “the equinoxes and solstices as used in modern pagan (and other) religions serve the same function.”
Funny thing, Erik…I just dug up a bunch of day lilies! I’m going to put in some Liriope and Powder Blue Festuca instead. First I have to finish with the root system though of the other plants that were there. Can’t remember what they were called. It’s through clay but the roots are a good 1/2″ in diameter.
Morning Angel, thanks for making that observation. I have to research every plant I want to use because this is not my forte. I’m a rock guy. The plants are just to provide a splash of color to my rock gardens
I don’t celebrate Spring with any formal rite, or anything……I just admire the new formation of leaves (which are quite beautiful when observed close-up) and thank the gods/esses for the continued circle of life.
Wassail!
Stu, I think that in itself is a celebration of sorts. We could do worse than doing simply that.
Good point about climate change. I think we’re so used to Nature being “on time” that when it changes, we’re all a bit thrown off. I like to get a feel for each day and season as it happens and not pay much attention to calender dates.
What I think is great about the seasons is that everyone can celebrate them whether religious or not. If we have one thing in common it’s our planet and the cycle of the year.