2020 Spring Equinox Ritual
Collective Wisdom and Prayers – with COVID-19 adaptations
Equinox marks the crossing of the sun and the lengthening of days and shortening of dark nights.
Todays empty or overgrown growing beds, soon to be cleared and covered in new growth, a march towards blooms of things planted prior, sprouts of shallow newly planted seed, and deeply set roots that hold, that are to grow and keep us all through the coming year.
The harvest of the circle that sustains us all through the years, and in these troubling and trying times we all face. But we do not face them alone. Even when others cannot be with us, we still sound together, bound by well wishes and the bountiful collective force of all our talents and dreams, where ever, and in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. We all come together.
Steve W.
About two weeks before our scheduled Spring Equinox celebration, the Healthy Authority recommended social distancing. We asked the public to send in their prayers and blessings for us to share at the Spring Equinox Ceremony.
We placed all of the prayers around the Newton Medicine Wheel circle, each with a small rock to signify the the people in the circle. We read our Grandma Amy’s Prayers for the Four Directions, and for each direction we gave our offerings.
For the East, the earth element, we offered a planter of soil with pea seeds planted. These seeds signify healthy new growth and healing for Spring. For the South, we offered fire. The yellow candle for the fire was lit by the mother candle of a Brigit candle from Ireland, it carries much healing power. For the West direction, we offered sacred water in a beautiful oyster shell. For the North, the element air, we offered a fish and bird like figure adorned with feathers, beads and shells created by Alex Tees. Grandma Amy drummed and sang “Oh, Great Spirit”, a song for the four directions written by Grandma Harris.
The four of us, Grandma Amy, Jasmeen Virk, Rella Tees and Steve Webster, each standing in one of the four directions, began reading the prayers. Starting in the East, we rotated sunwise around the circle, each reader acknowledging and standing in for the writer as if they were there. The prayer was read out loud, and then a rock was placed for that person in the Medicine Wheel, while sending the same good prayer back to the writer.
The circle was filled with prayers, and each of the prayers was planted in the Medicine Wheel so they may grow and radiate out beyond the Newton Medicine Wheel for the healing of all.
All the offerings and prayers at the Newton Medicine Wheel for this year’s Spring Equinox are a collective of well wishes from the good hearts of and for the community and the world.
For All Our Relations,
Rella
please read more complete details of the ceremony here
Our Thoughts, Poems and Prayers
We plant these prayers in the care of this Medicine Wheel and in the care of this land that where our garden grows and we know this healing energy resonates and ripples out to all in our community and out farther to all the world. Sweet winds carry these prayers and kind intentions to all, all over this beautiful Mother Earth, as we feel our hearts expand knowing our true capacity for love.
Teresa
I always love the idea that observations of the solstices and equinoxes are a time to ‘renew our vows’, to set our minds and hearts back to center, to practice with balance and grace what is right before us.
In these very strange days, I am often thinking of Don, wondering what he would have made of these crazy times. How I miss his perspective and guidance. And it also seems to me that the Great Mother Earth is letting us know that we have strayed so far out of balance.
Perhaps in these restricted times we can hope that many people will realize that due to our ‘crisis’, carbon emissions have decreased, and we are all doing with less, leading quieter and simpler lives. At least one can hope that this will be noticed.
As for you all, I send my deepest appreciation and warmest wishes. May all of you take good care, be well, and continue to find inner health and strength to be your full creative selves. Strength and creativity seem to be evident in the good hands that the PLOT now finds itself in. I know that Don is rejoicing for this. Carry on with full blessings!
Sending much love and light,
Cora
Grandma Amy’s Prayers for the Four Directions
East: The element for the East is ‘Earth’, the living soil
From the center of the Medicine Wheel, we face East.
Red is the East, it is where the daybreak star appears, the star of knowledge. Red is the rising sun, bringing us a new day, new experiences. We thank you Great Spirit, for each new day that we are allowed to live upon our Mother Earth. From knowledge springs wisdom and goodness. Knowledge shall become the beginning for ultimate peace throughout the world.
For All My Relations
South: The element for the East is ‘Fire’ – the Sun
The South is yellow. Our Mother Earth gives us our growth, gives us all that sustains us, the herbs that heal us. She brings forth the bountifulness of nature from the warm southern winds and the yellow hoop. When we face south, we think of strength, growth and healing. We pray that the healing elements will enter into our bodies, bringing strength, growth and balance to the four aspects of self – physical, emotional, mental/intellectual and spiritual.
We give thanks for the gifts of the South, For All My Relations
West – The element for the West is Water
From the center of the Medicine Wheel, we face West. Black is the water. Black is darkness, release, spirit protection. Black stands for the Great Spirit world where we shall all go one day. There we will know pure love and perfect peace.We give thanks for the waters of the world, the ocean, the heart of Mother Earth, the tides, her heartbeat. We give thanks for the great rivers of the world, the arteries, and for the smaller streams and waterways, the capillaries of Mother Earth. Thank you Great Spirit for the element of water.
We give thanks for the West, For All My Relations
North – The element for the North is Air
From the Center of the Medicine Wheel, we face North – the north is white. Courage, strength, endurance, purity, are the qualities we seek from the north. The white covering of snow covers our sleeping Mother Earth, covering all that lies beneath the leaves and snow….the tiny seed which waits only for the goodness of the water from Mother Earth and the warmth and love of Father Sun, to begin its journey back into the great Cycle of Life, in the springtime of its existence.
We give thanks Creator, for all the blessings we receive from our Mother Earth and Father Sky.
For All My Relations
Grandma Amy, Manchus S’Kwao, Earthworm Woman
On the Spring Equinox, light and dark are equal in a moment of balance. With Spring, we begin the lengthening of the days and the returning warmth of the sun. We see life beginning anew in the world and in ourselves after a winter spent resting and going within. You can feel the changes beginning all around you and can feel the blossoming within. As we move into the next cycle of the seasons we can make changes and find balance/lokahi within our lives calling forward all that we need to be in harmony within and without.
It’s a time of pono, making right with one and with the ones we love!
Gifted Blessing, Shaman Teague Eskelsen
The sky speaks a language anyone can understand. It sends rains upon the earth to feed the seeds and plants. It holds the sun in its folds to shine on us, granting us warmth, reaching to pull the growing plants upward to its light.
May the sky that speaks to all look down upon us and onto our garden. May its blessings help bring forth this spring’s scattered seeds, opening their protective sheaths, drawing up the green shoots into the light. May we all walk in its light, shining with its blessings, sharing that light with all whom we meet.
Heidi
Writing from Barranquilla, Colombia.
Thank you for keeping me in the loop , it means a lot, it gives me a sense of connection , of being there…Miss the PLOT and my fellow friends. Think about you all, please give those close ones a big warm hug and blessings for their safety at this unsettling time.
Sister of the North now from the South… ? being in Spirit and in thought to honour the Spring Equinox.
Even though The Equinox is a time of Balance, it happens today at a sad time of IMBALANCE of our world. We could only hope and pray that together as humanity we do our best to help RE-BALANCE Mother Earth and mankind. Each of us must continue to raise consciousness, open our hearts to live in love, integrity ,peace and in BALANCE.
For all my relations,
Namaste
Giselle
My prayer –
Begone Corona Virus!
Alex
As we gather and bring our attention inward
following our breath
we touch into the stillness!
A holy sacred place within each of us.
A place where we are all one .
And from this place we pray for grace to be our guide
trusting that we are being held in each and every moment.
At this time of fear and uncertainty we are being given the opportunity to become more compassionate and loving of one another.
We pray for healing , for strength, for wisdom!
Shalom, all my relations, a ho!
Blessings to everyone in the circle.
Jan
My Dear Friends
Can I say how much I love each of you? That you matter, one and all, to me so deeply! How coming together in community has changed my life! Don and Cora’s vision of this place we call PLOT Sharing Garden/Newton Medicine Wheel has blossomed so much more then fruits and veg. It has grown LOVE between diversities of every kind! I send a warriors blessing! I have suffered and survived extremes unimaginable but see now how all that has made me strong, so strong. I share willingly all my strength with each of you and our community, our world now and every day!
Grandma Amy has shared such gentle loving wisdom with us all – I honour her deeply for that. We are all so Blessed for her vision of Medicine Wheel and her teachings.
Teresa has offered us food, love, compassion at each and every step of our journey.
Steve – such a back bone of community – He works so hard everywhere to build a better world.
Rella and family – How great to have children who care and work hard to lift community! Rella whose spirit is strong and willing. Your family is a blessing Rella-to us all here in Newton!
Jasmeen, Aman, Michael – All so loving and compassionate builders who rise to keep this amazing place going!
Don and Cora for their visioning of this space. How I miss Don! His spirit strides these growing grounds and loves hard on our plants and on us all.
Pamela for our Heart Labyrinth! She will always be close to us all even as she moves far across Canada.
So many others to list – Community matters to us all -those on edge need always to be welcomed in for they know not of love, care, safety! Our example is a bright lesson for all to follow! I apologize if I left anyone out of list – Know you matter to me!
May the coming new season bring green new shoots to all our hearts and souls!
I love each of you so much. Thank you for being part of my life.
Katheren
I pray for: healing for those who are ill;
strength for those who are scared and lost;
love and balance for everyone everywhere –
balance within ourselves;
balance with what around us;
balance of the elements;
balance with mother earth,
balance in the universe.
For all my relations.
Rella
Cloud Forest
by Pascale Petit
To enter the forest
with leaves falling like rain,
wear a veil of many webs,
some so musty you are invisible.
You must smell of mould. Dress
in a patchwork of petals or butterfly scales.
Remove the soles from your store-bought shoes,
replace them with skin from a sloth
so you can hang upside-down
from the ghost-branches,
crawl slowly backwards through time.
Or paint your palms with beetle-blood,
bore to the heartwood
through cracks crooked as lightning.
There is nowhere left to go
but into yourself. You recognise organs
like landmarks, scars between the years.
You are learning to touch the curves
of immense rings, entering the age
when leaves converted air to light,
the forest glowing in the dark
like an X-ray of a lung.
Rest against the buttress of a tree
with its crown in the house of thunder.
Remember rooms lined with pollen
and the down of nestlings,
the nursery where children
tore leaves along their veins,
the fragments kept for birthdays,
games with the magnifying-glass.
To quench your thirst,
drink the mirrored clouds from the rivers.
Then a silence will fall
like soft dust from the stars.
Virginia
To the Person who Passes Through this Place by Alberto de Veiga Simões
I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights.
I am the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun.
and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on.
I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie and the timer that builds your boat.
I am the handle of our hoe, the door of your homestead,
the wood of your cradle and the shell of your coffin.
I am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty.
Ye who pass by, listen to my prayer.
Harm me not.
Virginia
Thank you for your love, care, creativity and compassion for our precious and deeply exhausted Mother Earth. Her forests and grasslands, jungles and tundras, sand dunes and beaches and both deep and shallow waters all need our love, care and commitment to protecting our precious ecosystems that are disappearing rapidly or struggling to survive.
It was such an inspiration to read the beautiful heart full letters shared by you all. Though I wasn’t at the ceremony today in person, I feel the depth of your love and energy for our precious medicine wheel.. our lovely and precious piece of peace in a world of so many unsettling events and news casts.
We live in unsettling times, dangerous times, catastrophic times. But to see and hear the love being poured into our community and our larger prayers for healing our precious planet is a gift of heart and care. I am so grateful to be part of this wheel of life we are sharing with kindness, creativity and compassion for all living beings.. including our mother Gaia, her beautiful planet and all the beauty that has been lived on our little blue ball circling our nearest sun.
It is an honour to share this path with you all… in peace, in the spirit of love and respect for community.
With all my love,
Roxanne
And the People Stayed Home by Kitty O’Meara
And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.
Tania
Spring Equinox Prayer for Newton Medicine Wheel and PLOT Sharing Garden
My prayers and thoughts go out today for this great awakening of consciousness in all people over the planet as we are being brought to our knees by this pandemic. We are being asked to stop and reflect. My prayers are for and in support of all of us as we are coming together for this common cause and for the highest and best good for this planet and for all on the planet
Feeling so much rising at this moment in time and an invitation to meet what is coming in in very different ways than the old platform. Feeling this invitation from the universe to meet this time with love and kindness, an opportunity to transmute old ways of being into something that will nurture and feed all life.
Feeling aware of the fear rising and at the same time this invitation to move with love and kindness instead of fear.
Feeling this gentle yet powerful and profound encouragement, to witness the fear as it rises personally and collectively, acknowledging it, and allowing room for it to flow through and out rather than tightening around it. Feeling the breath, the inspiration, the in-spirit of life as a great healer and as a way to guide us at this time and provide opportunity for transforming fear with love. Breath out Breath in.
We are being given opportunity for deepening our connection with the earth and the interconnectedness and interdependency that exists for all life all over the planet. Not one thing is thought or moved or put into action that does not affect the balance of the whole.
This is our time to connect into that greater grid or web of light and consciousness that is being expanded by forces seen and unseen, at this same time as fear of the pandemic is being felt. Feeling the power of what it means to feed and be feed by the stream of consciousness that is at play to support this new paradigm and new way of being on the planet that is in alignment with the highest and best for all creation, as Grandma Amy would say in line with the Laws of Nature, the Natural Laws, where all the elements are in balance…. Balancing and in Harmony with Loving Kindness and Healing for self, for others and for all creation.
For this I pray. And so it is.
“Man’s mind mirrors the universe which mirrors man’s mind”. What we set in motion is set in motion and to change that motion we change the word and change the world.
Brilliant Illuminated Healing Heart Light Shining Bright for all the front line workers all over the world, the dedicated doctors, nurses, the cleaners, the cashiers at the grocery stores, those preparing food, growing food, moving food, finding new medicines, for the first responders, those tending our dead and dying, for those moving into their hearts and bringing blessings into the world. For this I pray. As love replaces fear and radiate to all. All My Relations
To All those gathered today at the Medicine Wheel…. The biggest Heart Hugs Ever and deepest bow for standing in for all of us today at this important conjuncture. Your presence is such a gift to all.
Teresa
May we use this time to bring forth transformational healing, learning to embrace fear and turning it into love and acceptance for ourselves and for all of our sisters and brothers. May we come out of these trying times stronger and with a renewed vision of the direction humanity must be headed for the good of the entire planet. I keep in my heart those affected, those working directly towards the healing of the vulnerable and the sick and those making sure we have food and our spaces are clean.
Jasmeen
I pray for the health and wellness of seniors.
Daljit
My prayer
Connection to spirit
Love rules
Earth heals
Humanity heals
Loved ones make it home safe
Thankyou for this day
Thankyou for each blessing
Blessed be
Shayla
Pope Francis’s prayer to Mary during the coronavirus pandemic
O Mary,
you always shine on our path
as a sign of salvation and of hope.
We entrust ourselves to you, Health of the Sick,
who at the cross took part in Jesus’ pain, keeping your faith firm.
You, Salvation of the Roman People,
know what we need,
and we are sure you will provide
so that, as in Cana of Galilee,
we may return to joy and to feasting
after this time of trial.
Help us, Mother of Divine Love,
to conform to the will of the Father
and to do as we are told by Jesus,
who has taken upon himself our sufferings
and carried our sorrows
to lead us, through the cross,
to the joy of the resurrection. Amen.
Under your protection, we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God. Do not disdain the entreaties of we who are in trial, but deliver us from every danger, O glorious and blessed Virgin.
Vivienne
I pray for: world-peace, and healing for the world.
And to live in a safe environment, and to stop world-hunger.
Zena
My prayer is for healing for all. And I pray our Plot continues to exist as a space of compassion and empathy for the community involved in and around it. I am looking forward to participating more this year and contributing to the growth of this important project!
Aman
Channeled guidance:
Wisdom of the Ancient Ones 20 March 2020
In these troubling times we are being asked to revisit our relationship with Earth, with others and with ourselves through an understanding that is felt through the love. A love of all, whatever race or creed. We are all here on Earth at this time and Earth is the one planet that we resonate with.
We must love Earth as much as we love people. For many it is easier to love Earth, however for those they are to love people as much as they love Earth.
Earth resonates with our understanding of love that we feel within each of us. We all know this and can remember even if we have shut it down. This is a time to remember the journey of the soul through the love here on Earth at this time.
Many are holding on to old paradigms that are no longer serving humanity or Earth. The Ancient Ones have been trying to warn us and we have paid no heed to their suggestions. We set it aside in a box and pick it up when we feel. These suggestions are teaching us a way to live at this time, that incorporates the Earth and all those that reside on Earth, which includes humans, through a love that resonates with all.
We are being asked to embrace our relationship with Earth in all factors of our life, whether it is at home, at the office, in a spiritual place with an inclusion of Earth in all decisions. By doing this Earth becomes a neutralizing partner in decision making. Decision making embraces all factors in a gentle way, and yet there is still strength in the negotiations.
Business that includes Earth through the love in their mandates will be able to survive at this time. It means we are being asked to apply both the heart, which resonates with the Earth first, then apply the discussions of logic.
How can we do this?
” Invite earth to be a part of your life through the love.”
Listen to your intuition and trust yourselves.
Look to Nature as a reflection of where you are at and decide how you need to change, rather than how others should change.
Start living a way that includes Earth.
To help you, you have allies that will help you at this time. They are the plants. The plants have a very high vibration and are not influenced by you emotionally or mentally as animals often are. Many will say they don’t have a relationship with plants, that they like crystals.
There are many allies from earth to assist us and there is an order in Nature that will assist us to live in harmony with nature. The first is to learn to ‘Trust ourselves’. To do this we need to re-learn how to receive. The plants teach us to receive.
Once you have made the decision to ‘Invite Earth’ into your life ask which plant wants to assist you at that particular time. It often changes as you evolve in your remembering of your relationship with Earth. The plants assist you to feel in a way that you can start to hear the wisdom within.
You are preparing to work with your whole body, your physical self and then your relating or subtle energy self that includes the energies of emotions, mental thoughts and your spiritual soul essence. These aspects are felt and they resonate with the Earth.
You are not alone in your journey at this time. You are being given an opportunity to feel where all your energies start and finish, your emotional, thoughts and spiritual.
There is an order in this way of resonating with Earth. It is opposite to what many have been taught, and for that reason you are able to survive at this time.
Aroha nui and many blessings from the Ancient Ones.
Suzanne Robinson – Yewstone Garden
Thank you Rella Tees for your amazing vision of how everyone could safely come together, with healing prayers, to honour the Spring Equinox.
Thank you Jasmeen Virk for the beautiful images.
Thank you Tom Zillich for your lovely article about the ceremony in the Surrey Now-Leader.
It is so important to continue to support one another through these very challenging times.
