This is a ritual to be enacted quietly and unobserved on the eve of Lughnasadh. It uses Summer beads and a healing balm inspired by fragments of an ancient recipe for Carmelite Water; a healing potion created about 1379 by the Carmelite Sisters made from lemon balm, coriander seeds, cloves and other everyday herbs and spices. The healing balm is said to coax joy from the belly and is reputed to have been used as a tonic to relieve the body of the last vestiges of sadness. It is particularly effective at Lughnasadh when the energies of active growth co-exist with the gentle energies of slowing; as they begin to emerge in preparation for winter. Joyfulness and sadness meet in mutual recognition. Joyfulness listens intently to Sadness; Sadness listens intently to Joyfulness. Together they mutually transform; co-emerging through Slowing’s gentle energies.

Three days before Lughnasadh: Make nine pea-sized Summer beads from papier maché; wrapping them in summer flower petals and lemon balm leaves.

Two days before Lughasadh: Make your healing balm by adding lemon balm leaves, coriander seeds, cloves and mint leaves to drinking water. Store in an air-tight bottle.

On the eve of Lughnasadh: Take your beads and healing balm out into the world. If the world is not open to you at the moment, you can move around your flat/house. Dab a little of the balm onto your wrists, your temples, the back of your knees and your neck. Take one of your beads into your hand and feel its power. Walk for as long as you would like. If you encounter another person you might offer them your bead. You might see a tree or a wall where you might place your bead. If either of these happen, take another bead into you hand and continue. You can stop whenever it feels right to do so. Any remaining beads can be kept safely until next year. Invisible traces of the beads’ potency might permeate your very matter; transforming it.

Ritual

You can enact this ritual by yourself or with others (online or offline). You will need some rainwater in a dish (tap water is fine if you don’t have rainwater) and a candle: water and fire. As you speak the incantation light the candle and then dip your fingers into the water, slowly lift them above the dish and let drops of this water fall from your fingertips back into the dish.

Incantation

At the Spring Equinox we join the balance between Luna and Sol, between water and fire: a balance between fully transformed darkness and newly emerging brightness. We stand in-between, naked, vernal, free of articifice, aware. Water gathered from the skies this last while vivifies our husks; flame fires our bones. As the rain falls, our ardour ignites; life surges.


About the Spring Equinox

The Spring Equinox is a time of balance, union, manifestation and fertility. It is a time when we might become aware of the life force within and around us; when we might feel the surge of life and the fullness of living. The Spring Equinox is one of the eight Celtic festivals each of which marks a significant change in the calendar, in our yearly cycle. It’s also known as the Vernal Equinox – vernal meaning springlike and youthful.

The Spring Equinox is one of the two points in the calendar – the other being the Autumn Equinox - when there is balance between darkness and brightness, between moon and sun, between Luna and Sol, between Yin and Yang, between water and fire.

Astronomically, it is the time when day and night are almost but not quite equal. Almost, but not quite equal: Nothing ever reaches a perfect balance: almost but not quite equal is as close as we get. This is as true for ourselves as it is for night and day. The Equinoxes guide us to an almost-balance between our own interior and exterior lives.

The balance at the Spring equinox differs to that of the Autumn Equinox. At the Spring Equinox the balance is between a fully transformed darkness and a newly emerging brightness. At the Autumn Equinox the balance is between a fully transformed brightness and an emerging darkness. So each equinox has a different feel, and marks a different kind of transition.

The Spring Equinox marks the beginning of the bright half of the year, the Solar, Yang half of the year. This doesn’t mean that this half of the year is connected only to light, brightness, Sun, Sol, Yang, but that these energies, qualiites, are more pronounced. There is always an interplay - a drama perhaps - going on between Sol and Luna.