Spring Equinox Blessing* God of balance, we ask your blessing at this threshold when light and dark are equal. Teach us to welcome both into our lives, making room for joy and sorrow, for sunlight shimmering and moonlight radiance. As the light continues to grow, and birds and insects begin their migrations, journeying by impulse and intuition, help us to listen to your call to move in a holy direction. Inspire us to celebrate the burgeoning and blossoming of buds all around us as well as within our hearts. Holy Gardener, sustain us in nourishing this season of growth, cultivate trust in us that we are blooming something the world needs. Let the wondrous colors of creation remind us of the grace in diversity. Ignite our spirits and our feet to enter into this sacred dance of awakening with you.
Dearest monks and artists,
I believe deeply that the seasons have a great deal of spiritual wisdom to offer us if we make space to listen. They teach us of the cycles and seasons of the earth and of our own lives. We are invited into the movements of blossoming, fullness, letting go, and rest, over and over again. Just like the lunar cycles of the moon’s waxing and waning, so too does the body of the earth call us into this healing rhythm.
In the northern hemisphere, the spring equinox is on March 20th when the sun hovers above the equator, and day and night are equal length. Spring is a time of balance, renewal, and welcoming new life into the world.
As the northern hemisphere enters the season of blossoming we are called to tend the places of our lives that still long for winter’s stillness as well as those places ready to burst forth into the world in a profusion of color. It takes time to see and listen. Around us the world is exploding in a celebration of new life, and we may miss much of it in our seriousness to get the important things of life done.
Poet Lynn Ungar has a wonderful poem titled “Camas Lilies” in which she writes: “And you — what of your rushed and / useful life? Imagine setting it all down — / papers, plans, appointments, everything, / leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields / to be lovely. Be back when I’m through / with blooming.” Spring is a time to set aside some of the plans and open ourselves to our own blooming.
There is a playfulness and spontaneity to the season of spring that invites us to join this joyful abandon. As the poet Hafiz writes, spring is a time for singing forth and celebration. We are called to both listen deeply to the blossoming within ourselves as well as to forget ourselves — setting aside all of our seriousness about what we are called to do and simply enter the space of being. In this field of possibility we discover new gifts.
On my daily walks I see clusters of crocuses thrusting themselves out from the ground into the brilliant sunlight. The branches of cherry trees begin to hum, preparing to burst forth. Small shoots are pressing outward, anticipating their explosion into a pink spectacle of petals. And in my presence to this dynamic energy I discover places within me humming and bursting forth. I notice my own deep longings wanting to emerge in vibrant ways.
The fertility and flowering of spring speaks of an abundantly creative God who is at the source of the potent life force beating at the heart of the world. Created in God’s image, we are called to participate in this generous creativity ourselves. Our own flowering leads us to share our gifts in service to others.
In the Hebrew Scriptures the promise of God’s abundance is often conceived of as blossoming in the desert. In that harsh landscape, a flower bursting forth from the dry land is a symbol of divine generosity, fruitfulness, and hope. Hope is a stance of radical openness to the God of newness and possibility. When we hope, we acknowledge that God has an imagination far more expansive than ours.
What are you seeing around you? What are you feeling within?
We are delighted to be hosting Therese Taylor Stinson for our monthly Centering Prayer experience on Wednesday. Join a gathering of kindred spirits for some input from Therese and then time to sit in silence together.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE
PS – If you are in the southern hemisphere, click here for a reflection on the autumn equinox.
PPS – Blessings on this Feast of St. Patrick. You can read a reflection about him at this link.
*Spring Equinox Blessing is by Christine Valters Paintner and from a forthcoming book of blessings (due to be published in spring 2026).
Image © Christine Valters Paintner
