The Rites Of Spring


The official onset of spring is upon us this week, but its wild, untamed nature is clearly not for everyone. When Les Ballets Russes performed Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris early last century, the sensuality of Nijinsky’s pagan-inspired choreography so outraged the audience that the performance degenerated into a riot. It’s hard to see how the interests of decorum would have been best-served by a full-scale meleé, but those were different times. Even now, though, we live in a society divorced from the natural flow of the seasons, with only a few vestiges of our pagan past left in common parlance, such as spring cleaning. You can forget the rubber gloves – spring brings much more interesting pursuits, as Nijinsky well knew.

Far from being the province of a few desperate housewives with a cleanliness obsession, the spring equinox was traditionally a time for purification and rebirth. The Greeks celebrated this festival annually for around two thousand years with the sacred rites known as the Eleusinian Mysteries. As the historian, Geoffrey Hodson, describes in The Still-Functioning Greater & Lesser Mysteries, “What occurred in the sacred ceremony? Initiation into the mysteries, which brought about a spiritual birth, thus regenerating the whole individual. This was intended to reunite the personal self with the divine spirit of the cosmos as a whole … It also led to the development of intuitive insight and spiritual will-power as well as a deepening realization of oneness with all that exists, as well as a growing power to draw upon that oneness for the benefit of others.”

The purification began with the mind and body, and then came the housework. After the long winter, spring invites us to reconnect with nature and the world outside us, to release the past through cleansing our selves and our environment and to allow fresh new energy into our lives. It’s a time of earthly pleasures, romance and optimism. The winter New Year point is when we make plans for the calendar year ahead, but the spring equinox marks the astrological New Year, the time when fresh energy enters and those plans can begin to take shape.

To make the most of spring and to ensure you’re on track with your dreams for this year, take a leaf out of the Eleusinian Mystery book and create your own ritual of purification and regeneration. First, the inner work. Get quiet and remind yourself of the plans you made at New Year. Are they still right for you or has life taken you in a different direction? Is there an action you can take to kickstart your dream? What do you need to let go of, to make your dream a reality – a belief, a person, a way of being? What are the things you are drawn to now? Is there a different dream calling to you? Who do you need to spend time with to help you create the life you want? Your vision is what will sustain you through all the distractions the year may throw at you – make sure it’s a clear, passionate, heartfelt one.

Next, the body. Are there any habits you want to let go of to make sure you have plenty of energy to see your projects through? If you’ve been meaning to try a bit of de-toxing, a new yoga class or some bodywork to get yourself in balance, this is the time to do it. The spring energy will give you the resolve to stick to positive new habits and the increased light will inspire you to get out and about, shaking off the winter hibernation habit.

Now, your environment. The state of your house reflects the state of your mind. Holding on to things you don’t need will literally hold you back. Space clearing guru, Karen Kingston, stresses in Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui, “Clutter accumulates when energy stagnates, and likewise, energy stagnates when clutter accumulates. So the clutter begins as a symptom of what is happening with you in your life and then becomes part of the problem itself because the more of it you have, the more stagnant energy it attracts to itself.” She adds, “If you somehow get your life moving again, you will instinctively want to clear the clutter out of your home and make a fresh start. It will feel like the obvious thing to do.”

The ritual of spring cleaning was originally less of a house-proud issue and more a question of purification, of getting back to basics – the ancient equivalent of clutter-busting. The upshot is that you will feel lighter, clearer and full of energy. Don’t treat it as housework, but more like a rite for personal liberation. The best rule of thumb for clearing the dross out of your home and your life comes from the designer, William Morris, who said "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

We all come to life in spring, becoming more social, outgoing, and perhaps more than a little frisky. An over-developed sense of style prevents me from prancing about at sacred sites singing the praises of spring, but my own rituals will surely involve raising a glass of fizz in homage to the goddesses of the ancient mysteries, who clearly knew how to throw a fabulous party.

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All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 20 Mar 06)